A poll conducted by Yougov and Deloitte for the Edinburgh International Television Festival has revealed the telly habits of the nation, and they don’t make pretty viewing for advertisers.

A whopping 86% of respondents happily admitted to skipping through advertising on their digital recorders, a medium which is assuming increased importance for the broadcast market.

Timeshifted shows have contributed to a marked boost in the quantity of programming the average Briton consumes but this hasn’t translated into more eyeballs on the ads, a slide the poll suggests can only be countered by pursuing shorter ad breaks, shorter ads and more memorable campaigns.

It’s not all bad news for ad execs however, more than half (52%) of those quizzed stated that television was the most memorable medium in advertising, a figure that dwarfed its nearest rival, newspapers, which were plumped for by 10% of those polled. Online banner ads meanwhile crashed and burned with a mere one in a hundred backing them as top medium.

James Bates, media partner at Deloitte said: "Online advertising's poor showing relative to television may surprise, given that the former has often been portrayed as television's nemesis.

"What television does best – display and brand building – is what online struggles with. Online advertising is best at search, which previously newspapers, particularly for classified, had excelled at."

Bates points out  that “measurability” remains the greatest concern in TV advertising, that is pinpointing precisely how many of the billions of commercial impacts each day are actually being viewed.