On demand overtakes live TV viewing for teens

Viewing habits among young people are continuing to shift towards mobile and on demand streaming according to research from MediaCom. It found that a third ( 33%) of teenagers regularly view TV content via a smartphone, up from 25% in 2016. Two thirds of eight- to 12-year-olds now own a smartphone – it was 49% in 2015.

Netflix is the most used streaming service with 58% of 13- to 19-year-olds using it although it has not grown in use in the past year.

Amazon Instant Video was second, with 32% of teenagers using the streaming service (up from 24% last year); 15% of teens use NowTV and 11% Apple TV.

Josh Krichefski, CEO of MediaCom UK, said: “Mobile and on demand services have changed viewing patterns of everyday consumers. While 84% of young people regularly watch live programming on TV, the explosion of streaming services such as NowTV and Amazon Instant Video show that ‘live’ is no longer the only way kids watch.”

This study was conducted by MediaCom’s research division Real World Insight (RWI) in December 2016. The research was a quantitative survey of 1,231 8- to 19-year-olds in the UK.