Australian consumers have taken to ‘two screening’ by watching TV at the same time they are online, tablets and light notebooks have been credited for the increase.
Australian consumers have taken to ‘two screening’ by watching TV at the same time they are online, tablets and light notebooks have been credited for the increase.
According to a new Nielsen Australian Online Consumer Report, demand for the Internet has surged in Australia with consumers now online an average 21 hours and 42 minutes a week online, up from 17 hours and 36 minutes in 2009.
60% of those questioned said that they were now “two-screening”, or surfing the web while watching TV. This is 49 per cent in 2009. Nielsen are tipping that this could rise even further due to an increase in demand for tablet PC’s.
Ironically 40% of people listened to the radio while online and 10 per cent used TV and radio simultaneously.
Several consumers said that they accessing online content related to the TV program or ad they were watching with this increasing from 59 per cent to 69 per cent.
“People aren’t doing that all the time but there is an increasing number of people that are doing that,” Ms Lilian Zrim told the Australian. “If they’re stimulated by content they’re seeing on one screen and are able to follow that up immediately it presents a good opportunity for advertisers and marketers.”
The increase in Internet use, was the biggest year-on-year increase in the survey’s 11-year history and means average internet use has more than tripled in the past decade, from 6 1/2 hours in 2000.
“In the last half of the decade there’s been a massive jump in terms of time spent. Getting to almost 22 hours is a phenomenal amount of time,” said Zrim. “That would be quite high . . . usage compared to other countries.”
Three-quarters of people used a laptop to surf the web while watching the box, with 57 per cent using a PC or desktop computer, 34 per cent using a mobile phone and 10 per cent an e-reader or tablet computer such as a Kindle or an iPad. While 99 per cent of people reported watching TV content on a TV set, they also used a host of other devices, including their personal computer (69 per cent), laptop (62 per cent) and mobile phone (21 per cent). Eleven per cent said they watched TV on a tablet computer, such as an iPad.