The latest Ericsson ConsumerLab TV & Media Report, surveying the views of 1.1 billion consumers, has revealed what it calls an enormous and rapid shift in TV and video viewing behaviour towards mobility.
Yet despite this significant uptake, the report also highlights the fact that even though both mobile video and on-demand (VOD) TV viewing have soared over the past seven years, content discovery remains a huge frustration for consumers.
Among the key findings, the survey found that the weekly share of time spent watching TV and video on mobile devices has grown by 85% in the last six years. Moreover, average viewing times on mobile devices have increased by more than 200 hours a year since 2012, driving up overall TV and video viewing by an additional 1.5 hours a week.
Ericsson also observes that the surge in mobile viewing was offset with a decline in fixed screen viewing of 2.5 hours a week, while weekly share of time spent watching TV and video on mobile devices has grown by 85% over the last six years. By contrast, on fixed screens it has fallen by 14% over the same period. Yet the company stressed that one should not infer that the appetite for TV and video in general is not waning.
Another key finding was confirmation of the momentum of the VOD arena. The report shows that total viewing time of on-demand content — such as streamed TV series, movies and other TV programmes — has increased 50% since 2010. Ericsson suggests that strong indicators of this growing engagement and satisfaction with VOD services include the fact that consumers continue to embrace binge watching; 37% watch two or more episodes of the same show in a row on a weekly basis, more than a fifth say they do this daily.
There are direct positive outcomes for this trend. Ericsson calculated that consumer spending on VOD services in the US has increased by over 60% since 2012, from $13 to $20 per month Two-fifths of respondents indicated that they watch YouTube daily; a substantial 10% of consumers say they watch YouTube for more than three hours a day.
Yet for all this optimism, the cloud on the horizon is low consumer satisfaction when trying to find something to watch. The survey noted that 44% of US consumers say they can't find anything to watch on linear TV on a daily basis, an increase of 22% compared with 2015. In contrast, US consumers spend 45% more time choosing what to watch on VOD services than linear TV. Yet nearly two-thirds (63%) claimed that they were very satisfied with content discovery when it comes to their VOD service, while only just over half could say the same regarding linear TV. These findings, says Ericsson, suggest that although the VOD discovery process is more time consuming than with linear broadcast TV, consumers rate it as less frustrating, as it implicitly promises the opportunity to find something they want to watch, when they want to watch it.
Commenting on the trends revealed in the report, Zeynep Ahmet, senior advisor, Ericsson ConsumerLab, said: “We can see consumers increasingly ask for seamless access to high quality TV and video content, across services and devices. For consumers in general, and millennials in particular, being able to watch on the smartphone is key. Consumers not only want the shared, social broadcast TV experience, they also expect the flexibility of an à la carte on-demand media offering. Today's experience is multifaceted and consumers want to create their own worlds of compelling, personalised content.”
Source: http://www.rapidtvnews.com/2016110444945/massive-move-to-mobile-video.html#axzz4P3dPYVxZ