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YouTube, Gaming and Social Networking Busting TV's Chops

Posted by Soulskill on from the what-do-you-mean-i-have-to-watch-what's-on dept.

splitenz writes "A TV executive told a major Australian broadband conference that television audiences are slipping away into social media, gaming and other online subscription spaces. YouTube and online gaming is taking the traditional TV audience online and TV is struggling to fight back."

1 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Australian Effect? by cappp · · Score: 4, Informative
    I wonder if this is some kind of regional effect, or perhaps a little hyperbole designed to keep things interesting. The most recent numbers I could find note that in the UK

    "Viewers watched an average of three hours and 45 minutes of television a day in 2009, 3% more than in 2004, according to research published today by the media regulator Ofcom"

    If there was some generational effect going on (the article does note that the elderly watch more than the average) it would be somewhat mitigated by the Economist's finding that

    "In December 2009, Nielsen estimated that 34% of internet users had the television on while surfing the net. But when tuning in for a programme, television-watchers used the internet only about 3% of the time"

    US numbers show a similar trend -

    "the average American watches approximately 153 hours of TV every month at home, a 1.2% increase from last year"

    Those who are interested should check out the American Time Use Survey - it has some rather interesting content (for instance: 15 to 19 read for an average of 5 minutes per weekend day while spending 1.0 hour playing games or using a computer for leisure. )
    Taking the two pieces together it would seem we're watching more TV in general, and when we're online we have the TV on anyway. Hardly seems worth pounding the drums of the apocalypse over.