Research Reveals Increasing Consumption Of Media Across Europe
Europeans are watching more TV than ever before according to new research published by the Media Edge. The average European watches over three hours per day, with the Italians and the Spanish watching the most at over 4 hours per day, compared to 3 hours per day in 1989 for Italians and 3½ hours per day for the Spanish.
Residents of the UK are not far behind the leaders in terms of hours watched, consuming around 3½, a figure which has not changed greatly over a decade. 51% of Europeans have non-terrestrial TV, with the Netherlands having achieved 93% penetration. The UK is counted among those with lower penetration, with just 33%, but Italy has the lowest of all, with just 9% of the population having non-terrestrial services.
Unsurprisingly, the research also reflects a large increase in the use of the internet during the last two years. Use of the internet has grown amongst Europeans from less than one in ten in 1998 to over one in three in 2000.
The highest usage occurs in Sweden, where 65% of the population use it. The UK comes in at the higher end of usage, with 46% penetration. The lowest use is in Spain (12%) and Portugal (11%), while the fastest growth is seen in Italy, France and Austria over the two years.
Those who have followed the downward trend in newspaper circulations of recent years will not be surprised to learn that this is one area where UK media consumption has bucked the trend of increasing media consumption. The Media Edge report shows national daily newspaper figures per 100 of population fell from 40.5 in 1989 to 31.4 by 1999.
Charles Courtier, managing director of The Media Edge, warns that increased media consumption is not necessarily good news for advertisers: “Today’s typical European consumer is not only exposed to more channels of communication than ever before, from mobile, to satellite and cable, to internet, but also actively consumes more media than ever before. Increasingly, the challenge for marketers will be to find ways to appeal to the individual consumer on a personal level as they will have the power to block what they don’t regard as relevant. Traditional forms of directive advertising, increasingly have less and less relevance to today’s “information overloaded” consumer.”
The information has been published to coincide with the publication of the European Marketing Pocket Book 2001, which is published annually by the World Advertising Research Center, in association with The Media Edge.
The Media Edge: 020 7387 4522 www.mediaedge.com
Subscribers can access ten years of media news and analysis in the Archive