The time spent every week watching TV and video on mobile devices has grown by 85 per cent in the last six years, says Ericsson. Its seventh annual ConsumerLab TV & Media Report says content discovery remains a huge frustration for consumers. US consumers rate video on demand (VOD) services higher than broadcast TV, despite spending substantially more time (45 per cent) choosing what to watch when using them, it said.
Average viewing times on mobile devices has grown by more than 200 hours a year since 2012, adding 1.5 hours a week to overall TV and video consumption. The surge in mobile viewing is offset by a decline in fixed screen viewing of 2.5 hours a week. However, the appetite for TV and video is not waning.
Forty per cent of consumers globally are ‘very interested’ in a mobile data plan that includes unrestricted video streaming. In the US, 20 per cent of mobile viewing is paid-for content using services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime
A major issue, highlighted by the report, is low consumer satisfaction when trying to find something to watch. Forty-four per cent of US consumers say they can’t find anything to watch on linear TV on a daily basis, an increase of 22 per cent compared with last year (36 per cent).
US consumers spend 45 per cent more time choosing what to watch on VOD services than linear TV. Sixty-three per cent of consumers claim that they are very satisfied with content discovery when it comes to their VOD service, while only 51 per cent say the same for linear TV. The findings suggest that although the VOD discovery process is more time-consuming, consumers rate it as less frustrating as it promises to find something they want to watch, when they want to watch it.
The total viewing time of on-demand content – such as streamed TV series, movies and other TV programmes – has increased 50 per cent since 2010.
Zeynep Ahmed, Senior Advisor, Ericsson ConsumerLab, says: “Based on our extensive research, we can see consumers increasingly ask for seamless access to high quality TV and video content, across services and devices. Consumers not only want the shared, social broadcast TV experience, they also expect the flexibility of an à la carte on-demand media offering.”
Ericsson’s report is based on interviews with 30,000 individuals in 24 countries, statistically representing the views of 1.1 billion people. Interviews were undertaken with consumers aged 16-69 across 24 markets including India. All respondents have a broadband Internet connection at home and watch TV and video at least once a week. Almost all use the Internet on a daily basis.
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