An IBM online survey of household TV and Internet use across Australia, Japan, the UK, US and Germany has found consumers are using the Internet almost as much as they are watching TV every day.
Mirroring results from GfK earlier this year, the survey, which covered 2,400 households in the five countries, found 66 percent of respondents watched one to four hours of TV per day, versus 60 percent who spent the same amount of time on the Internet.
Out of the countries surveyed, Australia beat out the other countries with the most social networkers; 36 percent of respondents contributing to social networking sites and nine percent contributing to video content sites.
“Consumers are demonstrating their desire for both wired and wireless access to content: an average of 81 percent of consumers surveyed globally indicated they’ve watched or want to watch PC video, and an average of 42 percent indicated they’ve watched or want to watch mobile video,” said IBM’s Bill Battino.
The steady growth of consumer adoption of digital music, video and other entertainment services – though markets are still small by comparison to traditional media — show households are no longer “one size fits all,” and content providers and marketers must follow suit. 23 percent of respondents reported using a portable music service (e.g., iTunes); seven percent reported having a video content subscription for their mobile phones; 11 percent reported a PC-based music service; and 18 percent reported an online newspaper subscription.
IBM Australia Media & Entertainment executive Dominic Stone said, “Entertainment and information is going online and interactive. Young adults, the 18 to 34 year-olds, prefer their mobile phones and PC’s to television. ‘Kool Kids’ and ‘Gadgetiers’ have moved from land-lines to mobile communications. Now, cable and satellite TV subscriptions are under threat, as the primary source of content shifts from television to the Internet.”
In the largest digital video recorder market, 24 percent of U.S. respondents reported owning a DVR in their home and watching at least 50 percent of television programming on replay. Surprisingly, 33 percent in the U.S. reported watching more television content than before the DVR. More than twice as many U.K. consumers surveyed use video on demand services than own a DVR, and less than a third of U.K. consumers have changed their overall TV consumption as a result of DVR ownership. However, in Australia, despite owning a DVR, most respondents prefer live television or replay less than 25 percent of their programming, the survey found.
In Australia mobile phones are used for much more than phone calls; SMS/texting is by far the most popular mobile activity, as well as gathering information and entertainment (music, gaming, and news).
Conducted from mid-April through mid-June 2007 by the IBM Institute for Business Value, the Internet survey was split 64 percent female and 36 percent male. According to IBM, it proportionately reached demographic groups 18 years and over with approximately 45 percent surveyed between the ages of 18-34, 25 percent surveyed between ages of 35-44, and 30 percent surveyed age 45 and over.
