Yeah, everytime I read reports like this I’m like “where are all these people” as well, but Germany (where I’m from) reports similar numbers:

81% tune in at least once a week, and 65% (!) daily ( ard-zdf-massenkommunikation.de/…/2209_Egger_Rhody… )

There might be a number of reasons, but I do think if you only know 1 out of 50 you either are quite young but I would think you are just not aware of them doing so. Even 35% of the 14-29y age group in Germany report they watched TV yesterday. And you’d be surprised how common it is to still watch the evening news or the “sunday crime show” even among younger people, for older age groups it’s simply not a question. In Germany, people above 50 are 50% of the population. Also it heavily depends on your status/class/whatever.

But I do also doubt the validity of the data, since it’s prone to be skewed heavily (I should know, I actually did similar field tests in the past). For once, they’re relying on people’s self reports and those are always terrible. If you ask whether people did anything chances are they just click “once per week” without even thinking about it. Also, the German questionnaire for example asks for “TV programme currently running” but also “watched in a Mediathek” (our version(s) of the iPlayer). However, you can watch the current programme in a Mediathek, so that doesn’t make much sense.