At a time when advertisers are becoming increasingly concerned about audience fragmentation, an American study has sought to quantify levels of concurrent media usage and produced some interesting findings.
The
BIGresearch survey found that watching television is the most popular media-related activity during peak hours. Nearly 70% of those questioned said that they watched television between 7pm and 11pm compared to 43% who went online and 22% who read magazines.
However, BIGresearch found that simultaneous media usage is a regular occurrence for approximately half of the US population. This ties in with comScore research which found that 48% of the television watching public had a TV and a PC in the same room (see Half Of US Internet Users Watch TV While Surfing, Says comScore).
According to the latest survey, women are more inclined to use two media at once. For instance, 31% of female respondents said that they regularly go online while watching television but only 24% of men could say the same. Similarly, 43% of women said that they regularly watch TV when they are on the internet compared to just 35% of male respondents.
