Over 20% Of UK Kids Online Whilst Watching TV
More than 20% of British 16-24-year-olds use the internet whilst watching television, whilst almost 70% of UK adults go online at some point whilst watching TV, according to a survey commissioned by Blinkx, the video search service.
The report suggests that of those using the web while watching television, as many as 30% searched for products or services featured in programmes, while 27% searched for advertised products.
“It’s interesting to see that internet surfing is now challenging the way we watch television,” said Suranga Chandratillake, the founder and chief executive of Blinkx. “The UK no longer wants to be a nation of passive viewers. They want to find out as much information as possible and want to discover this through the internet at the same time as they are watching the content on the television.”
As well as using the internet while watching television, viewing programming online is increasingly popular. Over 50% of British adults with access to the web are watching programming online, with one in five watching full-length television shows, movies or sporting events, according to the research.
News is the most popular genre, regularly viewed online by 31% of men and 22% of women with online access. Sport is watched online by 27% of men but only 8% of women. Comedy is more popular among younger adults, with 35% of 16-24-year-olds watching comedy content online, compared to 16% of those over the age of 55.
A recent report from Hitwise suggested that UK internet traffic to video websites increased by 178% between February 2007 and 2008.
A Hitwise custom category of the top 25 video websites in the UK accounted for 2.22% of all UK iternet visits in February 2008, equivalent for one in every 45 internet visits that month (see Internet Traffic To Video Websites Increases 178%).
Meanwhile, in February, the BBC released figures which claimed that up to 500,000 programmes are downloaded or streamed from the BBC’s iPlayer every day, with 17 million have streamed or downloaded on-demand in the application’s first seven weeks (see Over 17m Shows Downloaded On iPlayer This Year).
Blinkx: www.blinkx.com