GfK: Time-shifted viewing – Television’s success story
Stacey Hand delves into GfK NOP’s annual media trends research in order to explore the expansion of time-shifted viewing…
The television industry has faced growing pressure from a number of other media players threatening to capture the audiences it has dominated for so long. While live television remains the favourite way for audiences to view television content, time-shifted viewing via PVR and streamed television services seem to provide the best potential avenue for television channels/programmes to extend their reach.
The television industry has certainly shown signs of targeting time-shifted viewers – Virgin Media plans to develop their next generation of set-top boxes with US-based DVR giant TiVo; and there is certainly talk of Sky expanding their Anytime offering to include greater on demand capability. The traditionally terrestrial television channels have also pushed to capture this market by launching internet-enabled television service YouView.
How are you watching television?
GfK NOP Media conducts an annual ‘Future of Media’ online survey in order to understand current media trends as well as to predict forthcoming media use. The results of the 2010 ‘Future of Media’ study show that watching television live as it is broadcast remains the dominant way to view the medium, with just over 9 in 10 respondents continuing to watch television in this way. Since 2007 this figure has remained fairly consistent and 77% of respondents felt that they would continue watching television this way in the future.
Changing Viewing Habits
The main growth areas in terms of ways of watching television content have been in the area of time-shifted viewing through a PVR and via streamed television services such as the iPlayer. The percentage of respondents who have reported watching television through a PVR has increased by 20 percentage points from 17% in 2007 to 37% in 2010. The percentage of respondents reporting that they have viewed television via streamed television services had quadrupled since 2007, from 8% to 32% in 2010.
Two in five respondents felt that they had watched more recorded/time shifted television in 2010 than in 2009. 18% of respondents felt that they had watched more television via an on-demand service this year than last year, and this figure rises to 30% among 18 – 34 year olds.
GfK NOP Media: Future of Media Study 2007 – 2010, ‘How do you watch TV programmes nowadays?’
Catch-up Services
Three quarters of respondents reported having used a catch-up service in the previous 12 months and among 16 – 34 year olds this number rose to 87%. 64% of respondents had used the BBC iPlayer in the previous 12 months, followed by the ITV Player with 30%, 4OD with 26%, Demand five with 13% and Sky Player with 10%.
While usage of catch-up services may be on the increase, the frequency with which people watch content via these services remains relatively low in comparison to daily usage of most other media. Only 1% of respondents reported using a catch-up service more than once a day.
This suggests that the future challenge for the television industry may lie in increasing the frequency with which audiences use catch-up services in order to effectively increase their reach in this way.
Use of time-shifted technology has certainly grown over time and with a line-up of exciting developments planned by a variety of television providers it seems that this method of viewing television is set to be the key area of growth for the industry.