Aussies are watching more TV

Warc, 17 July 2014

SYDNEY: The screen habits of Australians are evolving as take-up of connected devices goes on rising, but all major age groups continue to spend the majority of their viewing time watching broadcast TV on in-home sets.

The latest quarterly Australian Multi-Screen Report, produced by measurement bodies OzTAM, Regional TAM and Nielsen, found that during the first quarter Australians watched an average 93 hours and 16 minutes (93:16) of broadcast TV on traditional television sets every month, up 39 minutes per month year-on-year.

Most of that was live. Playback of broadcast content – with viewers recording and watching within seven days – accounted for just 7.8% of viewing. In terms of time this amounted to 7 hours and 15 minutes per month, up 27 minutes on a year earlier.

At the same time Australians are enthusiastically adopting new technologies and the use of laptops, tablets and mobile phones for watching video is increasing.

Overall, Australians spent 7 hours and 48 minutes per month in the quarter viewing video online – whether internet-delivered catch up TV or other content – on a PC or laptop. Video viewing on smaller, connected devices was rising in line with their take up, with a total of 1 hour 56 minutes a month spent watching online video on smartphones and slightly less, 1 hour 47 minutes, on tablets.

But this is not the primary activity undertaken on these connected devices, which the report said are being used to add to or to complement viewing of 'traditional' TV. Thus, three quarters (74%) of Australians had ever watched television while using the internet and 67% did so at least once a month.

This multiscreening activity was most often done on a laptop, with 40% indicating this was their usual device, followed by desktops (22%), smartphones (20%) and tablets (16%), reflecting relative household ownership rates of these technologies.

But when asked which devices they used regularly, a different picture emerged. Laptops still led, with 63% using them, but smartphones (50%) and tablets (36%) had overtaken desktops (34%), in a further illustration of how consumers are replacing traditional digital devices with mobile devices in their everyday behaviour.

Data sourced from OzTam; additional content by Warc