TV still ‘800-pound gorilla' in video media

US-- Don't sound the death knell for TV just yet – the ol' gogglebox is still America's favourite source of video entertainment, according to the results of a year-long observational study.

The project, commissioned by the Council for Research Excellence, recorded an average 353 minutes of TV viewing daily, with just over 87% of that time devoted to traditional ‘live' TV viewing. Watching video via computer, in contrast, accounted for an average 2.4 minutes a day among all adults – and just 5.5 minutes among 18-24 year-olds.

Average daily computer use – including web, email, IM and general software – was 142.5 minutes while time spent talking, texting, surfing, gaming and watching videos on mobile devices was 20.2 minutes.

Paul Donato, the chief research officer of media research agency Nielsen, said: “These new results are consistent with previous Nielsen studies that have found that video consumption has never been higher and that television continues to dominate the media landscape.”

Nielsen funded the $3.5m study through grants to the council, whose members are all clients of the company.

In commissioning the project, the council said it wanted to map the changing landscape of consumer media usage within the context of their daily lives.

Around 350 people were shadowed by observers over two separate days within a six-month period, and their exposure to visual content was recorded at 10-second intervals. (Click here for more on the methodology behind the research.)

A separate group of 100 people, called the Media Acceleration Panel, were also observed. This group was offered the opportunity to purchase a range of new media devices and services, with half the cost subsidised by the study. The first wave of observation occurred before they had invested in the new technology, while the second wave tracked changes in their media use in the months following their purchases.

Shari Anne Brill, chair of the council's media consumption and engagement committee and senior vice president and director of programming at media buyer Carat, said: “This landmark research study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how consumers go about accessing content across all platforms within the context of their daily lives. It also considerably advances the council's thinking regarding audience measurement priorities.”

The council said that it was in the process of forming a special committee to work with Nielsen to determine how best to incorporate the findings of the project into the agency's audience measurement services.

Author: Brian Tarran

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