What we do for fun has changed almost immeasurably since the dawn of the internet and the development of digital technologies. Explore this fascinating comparison of 5 popular forms of entertainment – radio, TV, mobile phones, gaming, and casinos – and how they’ve evolved through the digital age.
Radio
The humble radio has come a long way since the first UK broadcast by the BBC in 1920. It was a centrepiece of many homes across the country from the 1920s to well into the 60s, with families gathering round in the evenings to listen to its reports, stories, and music. The transistor radio, launched in 1954, quickly became one of the era’s most popular entertainment devices as it meant people could listen on the go.
Although radio as a form of entertainment slumped in popularity when television appeared, it has experienced something of a resurgence thanks to technological advances. Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) radio stations started airing in 1995, and by 2015, digital radio was outperforming analogue in homes for the first time (46.2%). Overall, though, analogue radio still rules as it’s the most common type of radio in cars.
Surprisingly, as of Q1 2024, radio is more popular than it’s ever been, with 49.9 million Brits tuning in weekly (88.6% of the adult population). Guess Queen was right when they sang “you’ve yet to have your finest hour”.
TV
The 1950s was the golden age of television, with ‘the box’ being the primary form of entertainment in the UK at the time. New stored media options like VHS in 1976 and DVDs in 1996 made the appeal of owning a TV even more inviting. DVD sales have dropped dramatically over the years, plummeting more than 86% since 2008. Popping to the local pictures was another popular entertaining activity; from 2001 to 2019, cinema attendance in the UK consistently hovered between 150 and 175 million. However, numbers slumped to just under 44 million when the pandemic hit in 2020 and they’ve never fully recovered, struggling to reach 124 million in 2023.
Largely responsible for the stark change is the rise of the internet, smart TVs, and video streaming services. YouTube was one of the first to disrupt the concept of home entertainment with its launch in 2005, becoming the most popular video service in history by 2010. Netflix switched from its origins as a DVD rental brand to providing streaming video services in 2007, cutting its DVD service altogether in September 2023 after it contributed only 0.5% to total revenue. Netflix is now the most popular streaming service in the UK, with 16.7 million subscribers. Launched as Amazon Unbox in the US in 2006, Amazon Prime Video arrived much later in the UK in 2014, and is the second most popular streaming service with 13.4 million UK subscribers.
Streaming video services have become extremely popular, with presence in UK households rising from 20% in 2015 to 66% in 2023. Today, almost 71% of UK homes (20.1 million households) subscribe to streaming services.
Mobile Phones
Ignoring prank calls to laugh at the voice of the speaking clock (launched in 1934 and still active, receiving 30 million calls per year!), phone-based entertainment largely consisted of a basic form of Tetris on the Hagenuk MT-2000 in 1994, and that timeless game of Snake, first appearing on the Nokia 6110 in 1997.
Fast-forward to 2007 and the launch of Apple’s iPhone, the first smartphone, completely changed the concept of mobile phones forever. Since 2014, mobile gaming has outperformed games consoles as the most popular gaming device in the UK, with 34% of gamers using their phone as their gaming device of choice in 2023. The most popular mobile game in the UK in 2023 was Subway Surfers, which achieved 304 million downloads worldwide for 2023/2024. Honourable mentions include Stumble Guys (254m downloads), Roblox (208m), and Candy Crush Saga (138m – guilty!). We’ve certainly come a long way since Snake!
Gaming
Video gaming was the primary form of gaming in the UK in the 1990s, the golden age of gaming, as innovations in technology led to 3D graphics and fierce competition between Sega and Nintendo for market share. The UK spent £87 million on games consoles in 1990, which exploded to £298 million just a year later. In 2023, UK games console spend reached nearly £1 billion (£951 million). However, it’s still only the second most popular form of gaming in the UK after mobile phone gaming.
Massively, multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) became popular in the late 90s and early 00s with the release of games such as Ultima Online in 1997, and EverQuest and Asheron’s Call in 1999. This contributed to the rise in popularity of esports competitions involving games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, StarCraft, and Counter-Strike. Today, these types of online games are hugely popular, with 68% of UK gamers setting aside time for them.
Despite the invention of virtual reality (VR) back in the 1950s, the technology didn’t become widespread enough to grow in popularity until around 2016 with the release of the HTC Vive, Playstation VR, and Oculus Rift. Wire-free headsets like the Oculus Go in 2018 meant you didn’t need a console or PC to play VR games like Beat Saber and Pistol Whip, leading to a spike in popularity in the UK in 2021, when around 600,000 headsets were purchased. However, VR gaming still only amounts to just 4% of total UK gaming, as of 2023.
Casinos
Casino gambling has undergone its own digitisation over the years. Gambling in general has been a popular pastime in the UK for centuries, but the heyday for casinos followed the Gambling Act of 1960, which led to an explosion of casinos. Between the 1960s and the late 1980s, there were more casinos in London than in any other UK city. There are still more casinos in London (22) than in any other European country except France. In 2023, there were 144 land-based casinos operating in the UK, down from 156 in 2019.
The industry exploded after the launch of the world’s first online casino, Gaming Club, by Microgaming in 1994. There are currently 36.43 million active online gambling accounts in the UK and growth looks set to continue. Today, there are 178 online casinos licensed by the UK Gambling Commission – that’s 34 more than the number of land-based casinos in the UK in 2023. The UKGC’s regulation of the industry, which began following the Gambling Act 2005, ensures today’s online casino experiences are safe and fair for players, helping put an end to such myths that suggest games like roulette can be rigged.
Entertainment in the future
Our pastimes will no doubt continue to evolve alongside our technological capabilities. Maybe in another decade or so we’ll be interacting via holograms, experiencing films and series on an immersive, tactile level, and playing Snake analogues with our minds.