Report: Connected TV - A ‘Game Changer’ in the UK in 2011

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Tuesday, 23 November 2010 12:18

New futurePROOF research from Kantar Media, a leading provider of media research and insights, suggests that connected TV is set to have a big impact on British digital behaviour in 2011, with the launch of YouView. Awareness of IPTV has not yet reached the mainstream with 42% of the population aware of IPTV. However, there is already evidence of a behaviour shift stimulated by the availability of TV on demand on a TV set.

Virgin Media viewers, who have a full on demand service via their TV, are more likely to have watched on demand through TV (63%) than online (22%) in the last four weeks. The gap is much smaller in Sky homes where there is not yet a full on demand service via TV (42% via TV, 27% online). In Freeview-only homes, where no TV on demand is available via a TV set, the study shows a greater proportion of people watching TV online on demand (34%) than in any other type of household.

Trevor Vagg, Kantar Media director, comments:

“We see connected TV as a potential ‘game changer’ in how people are going to be watching TV. The ability to watch streamed online content is not a new concept for consumers but being able to view it on their high-spec TV screen rather than their laptop or tablet will be a no-brainer. Connected TV also has the possibility of really taking the internet into the living room and making it more of a shared experience.”

Six per cent of the population have viewed TV on a mobile or portable device in the last four weeks. What is different about mobile viewing is that YouTube is the most viewed channel, watched by six in ten mobile TV viewers in the last four weeks. This fits with mobile TV viewers’ greater likelihood to agree that they would ‘prefer to be able to choose to watch TV programmes from a variety of channels on one website’ (60%) than average (29%).

Despite so much digital media choice available for consumers, traditional media still holds a significant place for the British population. Two-thirds of the British population rate TV as a medium that is important to them. This figure has grown over the last year proportionally by 14 per cent. Internet is the next most important medium (57% agree), followed by radio (44%) and newspapers (38%). People aged under 35 however ranked the internet as the one media they would choose, with TV in second place.