The heaviest users of the internet are also among the heaviest viewers of television, according to new US research from the Nielsen Company.
Nielsen found that the top fifth of US internet users spend more than 250 minutes per day watching television, compared to 220 minutes of television viewing by people who do not use the internet at all.
The figures are from Nielsen’s new TV/internet convergence panel, which electronically measures both television and internet usage in the same homes.
According to the convergence panel, the lowest consumers of television also have the lowest internet usage levels.
Nearly 31% of in-home internet activity takes place while the user is watching television, demonstrating that there is a significant amount of simultaneous Internet and television usage. Conversely, about 4% of television viewing occurs when the consumer is also using the internet.
The panel sample consists of nearly 3000 people in more than 1000 households who were either previously part of Nielsen’s live national TV sample and have agreed to continue to be monitored by Nielsen, or new homes installed specifically for convergence research.
Other findings from Nielsen’s TV/internet convergence panel:
- Roughly 50% of the convergence panel panelists had viewed some streaming content online. The demos streaming the most included Female Teens (82%), Male Teens (64%), Men 18-34 (57%) and Men 35-54 (55%).
- Nearly 60% of panelists and more than 80% of people who watched TV and used the internet that month had simultaneous sessions – watching TV and being online at the same minute. This group tends to be very heavy users of both TV and internet.
- Teens are the most likely demographic to have simultaneous TV/internet usage, but Adults 35-54 have the most simultaneous usage minutes.
Howard Shimmel, senior vice president client insights, Nielsen Company, said: “”With our convergence panel we can now, for the first time, observe what could only be guessed at before – how television viewing and Internet usage interact and affect each other.
“It is too early to draw any firm conclusions about behaviour but the early trends seem to indicate that online usage is complementing, not substituting for, traditional television viewing. We will be watching this trend carefully to see how television viewing drives internet usage and visa versa.”
Break Media published research last month which found that over two thirds-of men cannot live without the internet when compared to television (see Men “Value The Internet Over TV”).
ABI Research, meanwhile, released figures which showed that the total number of consumers watching video streaming through a browser in the US has doubled over the past year (see Number Of US Households Watching Online Broadband Video Has Doubled).
The research found that all forms of content are contributing to the rise of broadband video consumption, including that of long-form TV shows.
Related Links
