A third of television viewers now watch their favourite programmes online, on computers and mobile phones, according to new research.
The joint study by the Radio Times and SeeSaw.com has highlighted changes in the way people now view programmes.
A total of 34 per cent of those questioned said they watched TV shows on the internet while for students the figure was even higher at 56 per cent, meaning more students are viewing programmes on their laptops than on television sets.
Only 39 per cent of students said they watched programmes in the traditional way while more than half of those questioned over the age of 65 generation said they had watched a programme online in the past year.
Ben Preston, the editor of Radio Times, which commissioned the survey, said: “The couch potato is dead, the age of the hunter-gatherer is nigh.
“Technology means television isn’t a passive activity any more. We hunt down what we want to watch, we gather up great shows we’ve missed and we chat and joke about what we’ve seen – whether friends and family are sitting next to us or are online thousands of miles away.”