Media multitasking, the simultaneous consumption of different media, continues to be the norm in the US, according to the just released results of a survey carried out by BIGresearch.
BIGresearch says that these multi-taskers cross all forms of media usage, both traditional and new. For example, almost 70% of internet users say they watch TV occasionally to regularly while they surf the information superhighway.
Of the newspaper readers, nearly 65% say they watch TV occasionally to regularly while they read and 51% of radio listeners occasionally to regularly read the newspaper while listening.
According to the market intelligence firm, the impact of new media becomes more apparent when looking at the types of websites survey respondents visited most for fun and entertainment. Yahoo! topped the list at 10.4%, followed by Pogo.com (5.5%) and MySpace (3.8%). iTunes was top for music/video downloads (7.6%), with Yahoo! (3.9%) and LimeWire (2.8%) in second and third place respectively.
Phil Rist, vice president of strategic initiatives for BIGresearch, said: “When you add new media to the mix, such as satellite radio, blogging, and instant messaging, consumers have more media options than ever vying for their attention. They’re quickly growing accustomed to using more than one media option at once, so the world of traditional media is becoming even more fragmented.”
Rist added: “Consumer tendency toward media multitasking makes effective marketing and advertising an entirely new challenge. Suddenly, a ‘once captive’ TV audience has now defined itself as a ‘moving target’.”
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