On-demand TV viewing rising, Ericsson consumer trend report finds
People are spending less time watching scheduled TV and more time watching on-demand TV online, according to Ericsson’s annual ‘TV & Video Consumer Trend Report’.
The annual report has found that over 38% of respondents said that they watched online TV more than once a week, while 80% said they watched broadcast TV on more than one occasion each week.
The study also found that social media usage had altered TV viewing habits with more than 40% of respondents claiming to have used social media on smartphones and tablets while watching TV.
Data for the report was collected across Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, the US and South Korea. In all, 22 qualitative and 13,000 quantitative interviews were conducted representing almost 400 million consumers.
Anders Erlandsson, senior advisor at Ericsson ConsumerLab, commented: "On-demand viewing is increasingly popular, while broadcast viewing has remained as the most common way for people to watch TV. People want both broadcast and on-demand viewing to be available. TV and video have not been negatively affected by the internet in the same way that print has; we just watch TV in many more ways than we did before.
"Our in-depth interviews - especially those in the US, which is a frontrunner in TV/video consumer trends - show how social media usage is impacting viewing. The majority of families combined TV viewing with the use of Twitter, Facebook, texting, voice calls and forum discussions about what they watched. This is particularly the case when watching reality shows and sports. This communication adds another dimension to the TV experience, as consumers found an annoying reality show funnier when they were able to comment on social media about 'terrible' singers, 'ugly' clothing or when your favourite team scores a goal," added Erlandsson.
It was also discovered that people in Germany were watching less than 25 hours a week of TV and video, with 28% of that on-demand, in comparison with Spain where 44% of TV viewing was on-demand.