Television is losing ground to the Internet as viewing platform of choice in the Middle East and North Africa, with average TV audiences down by 5% since 2014, according to a recent study.
While almost all (95%) of nationals watch TV, the number of those who watch daily fell from 69% in 2014 to 64% in 2016, according to the latest survey conducted across six countries by the Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) in partnership with Doha Film Institute (DFI).
The decline is most notable in Qatar, whose daily TV viewership fell from 62% in 2014 to 41% in 2016, followed by Saudi Arabia (from 65% to 49%). In Egypt, the proportion of those watching TV each day fell from 70% in 2014 to 63% in 2016.
In contrast, the share of Internet users spending time online every day jumped 11% from 63% in 2014 to 74% in 2016. Every day, across the Middle East, more adults consume online content than watch TV, except in Egypt and the UAE, where an equal amount of nationals do both every day.
This increase in online consumption, however, has not yet materialised into revenues for video-on-demand (VOD) providers, according to the 6,058 adults surveyed in Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE.
“While many nationals go online for entertainment, relatively few are willing to pay for online content. Only 17% of Internet users have paid for any online content in the past year, while 26% are willing to pay in the future. Just one in 50 Internet users paid to watch a TV series online in the past year (2%) and only 4% say they are willing to pay. The UAE is an exception; 15% of Emiratis are willing to pay for TV content online, though only 6% have paid for content online,” the Media Use in The Middle East study said.
Researchers also found that the region’s women are more likely than men to watch TV every day (67% versus 60%), though both genders are equally likely to go online every day.
“Nearly a quarter of nationals who watch TV have done so via the Internet in the past six months (23%); this pattern is relatively consistent across countries,” the NU-Q/DFI study added.
Nationals aged 18-24 are increasingly likely to favour being online to watching TV, with 79% using the Internet compared to 60% watching TV. They are also almost four times as likely to watch content online as those aged 45 or over, researchers found. A third of university educated nationals who watch TV do so online (34%), compared to only 3% of those with only a primary education.
Television remains the platform of choice in the Middle East for watching films, however, with 90% watching movies on their TV sets. TV is also the most popular platform for listening to music (65% of all nationals), compared to the Internet and radio (41% and 35%).
Internet and smartphone penetration are significantly higher in the GCC than other countries included in the survey. UAE has the highest Internet penetration rate, with most nationals connected to the Internet in 2016. Qatar and Saudi Arabia both have around 93% Internet penetration, followed by Lebanon at 84%. The lowest levels of Internet connection are found in Egypt (59%) and Tunisia (49%), though connections have increased by 14% in Egypt and 5% in Tunisia in the past year.