People are spending more time watching streamed on-demand TV online than scheduled broadcast TV, as per the results of an annual study by Ericsson ConsumerLab.
Twenty two qualitative and 13,000 quantitative interviews were conducted across Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, the US and South Korea, representing almost 400 million consumers.
In the study, ‘TV & Video Consumer Trend Report 2011,’ more than 38% of the respondents reported watching internet-based on-demand TV more than once per week, while about 80% watch broadcast TV more than once per week.
More than 40% of the respondents disclosed using social media on a variety of devices such as smartphones and tablets while watching TV.
Customers are most willing to pay for fresh Box Office movies that still run at the movie theaters, directly to the TV.
The survey also shows people in Germany spend no less than 25 hours per week watching TV and Video, but only 28% of this content is on-demand.
In Spain as much as 44% of all TV viewing is on-demand.
Ericsson ConsumerLab senior advisor Anders Erlandsson said 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," Erlandsson said.
"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 favorite team scores a goal."
