TV viewers opt for pay-TV services and social networks
In the future, viewers are more likely to opt for pay-TV over free-to-air services, despite free-to-air having a greater reach, according to new research from Motorola Mobility.
Rapid TV News say viewers are increasingly willing to pay for services which they feel are valuable. The majority of paid-for content is consumed on one device (generally a household’s main TV set) and that is unlikely to change, although consumers feel it is important to be able to access free content on devices other than the TV set.
The Global 2010 Media Engagement Barometer study also forecasts that social media will play a key role in the future of television viewing. According to the research, 42% of viewers globally have had an email conversation, engaged in an instant message chat or used a social network to discuss a program or video while they were watching it. Of these, nearly a quarter (22%) said that social-media multi-tasking is a regular part of their viewing experience. 61% also indicted a willingness to pay more for a service that offered these capabilities.
Panellists at MediaTel Group’s The Internet Comes to TV event in London last week were optimistic about the future of connected TVs, with the rise of apps and the changing trends in TV viewing. However, on the whole, they felt that social media will feature on a second screen, rather than on the main television set. Channel 4’s head of VoD & channel development Sarah Rose said viewers do not want clutter on their main screens.
Speaking again at a Thinkbox event this week, Rose said there will be an increasing number of opportunities to offer viewers a richer and more interactive experience, while not detracting from the more traditional big screen experience.
Panellists talked about offering viewers the chance to buy an item of clothing that their favourite soap star is wearing; or a link to iTunes to download the title track of the TV show they are watching; as well as the chance to talk about/rate programmes with their friends and family via a social network feed, however, even though this functionality will be integrated in to connected sets, it is more likely that we will see these features used on a laptop (or second screen), for now at least.
Yesterday, research unveiled at the AOP Forum supports this view. Kantar Media’s Richard Asquith and Trevor Vagg said the rise of the ultimate “sofa device” – the iPad – will help the mass market make the jump to digital, although people will not abandon their TV sets in favour of other devices. They also said there has been a shift in the way people use the internet at home, with an increasing number focusing on entertainment.
Meanwhile, Starcom MediaVest’s Scott Thompson said the concept of ‘sofa-surfing’ is “different to anything we’ve ever seen before”. For him, it is the idea of being able to relax at home, using two screens to get the most out of your TV viewing experience.
ITV’s latest research project shows that social networks can extend a programme’s reach significantly – in a week, seven million adults talked about or read about The X Factor on a social network, according to Suzanne Lugthart, who predicts that one day a TV show will have a bigger offline audience than linear audience.