Changing media trends in 2010
Stacey Hand, senior research executive at Gfk NOP, takes stock of the year so far and looks ahead to see how the media landscape will change over the coming months.
As we approach the half way point of 2010 it seems fitting to re-examine the media landscape to find out what’s hot and what’s not so far this year.
GfK NOP recently conducted its annual ‘media trends’ research among 725 respondents to explore changing media habits in 2010.
Media Devices
The computer remains the dominant device in 2010. Respondents were asked which device they would choose if they could only own one and 55% of respondents chose the home PC/mac.
In second place, respondents chose television but interestingly, this was closely followed by the mobile phone. In fact among 16 to 34 year olds the mobile phone was the device of choice for 30% of respondents – 14 percentage points ahead of television.
The top three devices that respondents are considering purchasing over the next 12 months include a new television – with LED, HD and 3D televisions all being considered; a new mobile phone – with specific mention of the iPhone; and a new computer/ laptop with specific mention of the iPad.
Smart phones
The continuing rise of the smartphone has meant that people are increasingly using their mobiles for activities other than phoning and texting.
The top five activities among those respondents with smartphones, other than making phonecalls and texting, were taking photos, general internet browsing, e-mail, social networking and reading news online.
The top three brands of smartphone used by respondents are Nokia, the Apple iPhone and Samsung.
Social Networking
Facebook continues to dominate the social networking world and the number of people visiting the site continues to grow. Sixty five percent of respondents visited the site within the last month – 7 percentage points up from last year’s figure.
Twitter has also increased in popularity, and has now overtaken the previously popular sites of MySpace and Bebo, with 18% of respondents having visited the site within the last month – this is up 6 percentage points from last year.
Friends Reunited has seen the largest downturn in terms of people having visited the site within the last month – down 11 percentage points from 2009.
Television
Watching television live as it is broadcast remains the dominant way to view television content – with 77% of respondents feeling that they would still continue watching television in this way in the future.
The main reasons that respondents prefer live television are so that the results of a programme cannot be spoilt and to act as background noise while they do other tasks.
Time shifted viewing through a PVR and viewership of streamed content through portals such as the iPlayer are both on the rise and each has seen an increase of 6 percentage points in reported usage over the last year. The BBC iPlayer, the ITV Player and 4OD were the top three catch-up services used over the previous 12 months.
Certainly 2010 is showing some increasingly interesting findings in terms of media. Smartphones have certainly made an impact on consumers’ media habits and look to do so further in the future. Social networking continues to grow, although Facebook’s dominance of the market seems to leave little room for competitors – with the possible exception of Twitter.
While new media devices have caused some excitement this year it is also evident that some traditional media, such as live broadcast television, are here to stay.