Consumer Interest Shifts from Broadcast TV to Internet-Based On-Demand TV: Ericsson

People are spending less time watching scheduled broadcast TV and they are spending more time watching streamed on-demand TV online, according to Ericsson (News - Alert) ConsumerLab.

More than 44 percent of the respondents said they are watching Internet-based on-demand TV more than once per week, while about 80 percent watch broadcast TV more than once per week.

Data for Ericsson’s annual study, called “TV & Video Consumer Trend Report 2011,” were collected from Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, the US and South Korea.

The company conducted 22 qualitative and 13,000 quantitative interviews representing almost 400 million consumers.

“On-demand viewing is increasingly popular, while broadcast viewing has remained as the most common way for people to watch TV,” said Anders Erlandsson, senior advisor at Ericsson ConsumerLab, in a statement.

“People want both broadcast and on-demand viewing to be available. TV and video have not been negatively affected by the Internet in the same way that print has; we just watch TV in many more ways than we did before,” Erlandsson added.

More than 40 percent of the surveyed respondents use social media on devices such as smartphones and tablets while watching TV.

Majority of families combine TV viewing with the use of Twitter, Facebook (News - Alert), texting, voice calls and forum discussions about what they watched. This is particularly the case when watching reality shows and sports.

Recently, Ericsson announced its Device Connection Platform and its acquisition of the Telenor (News - Alert) Connexion platform and operations. The acquisition is expected to bring new capabilities to support flexible connectivity and cost structures in order to address a highly diverse set of devices and connections.

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