Families sidelined by soap addicts

Telly addicts spend more time watching their favourite soaps than with their own family, new research shows.

A study for ITV.com found the average viewer spends just 90 minutes of quality time with their partner or family a week, but still finds time to devote 275 minutes - over four and a half hours - to keeping up with the soaps.

This contributes to the shocking statistic that 47 per cent of viewers admit to knowing more about their favourite soap characters than they do about members of their own family.

Commenting on the figures, managing director of ITV.com Annelies Van Den Belt said: "Britain has always been a nation of soap addicts."

But it seems some are more addicted than others, with nearly a fifth of viewers saying they only miss an episode if they are out of the country and seven per cent claiming they never miss one.

And the study also showed that a fifth of viewers watch at least 20 hours of TV a week - which would make the addiction fairly close to being more like a second job.

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