Fact is, TV is
more popular than ever
Americans are watching more and multitask less
By Diego Vasquez
Dec 17, 2009
Has the recession given us back our attention spans? A new report from Deloitte finds that over the past few years media multitasking has been falling after peaking earlier this decade, when the internet was used more for informational tasks than as an entertainment medium. These days, with people going online to watch video for free as well as find the latest weather forecast, there's not as much multitasking going on. The recession is affecting us in other ways, too. The report also finds that an increasing percentage of people name television as their favorite activity. Thirty-four percent of respondents say TV is their favorite form of media, up 26 percent from last year. Respondents also report watching more TV via time-shifting devices such as DVRs and online platforms like Hulu. Ed Moran, director of insights and innovation at Deloitte, talks to Media Life about the decrease in multi-tasking, the rise in TV devotion and why television's demise has been grossly overstated.
What did you find most surprising or most interesting about this study?
I think overall one of the interesting things that jumps out at me is how consistent the responses are throughout the years. We don’t keep going back to the same people, we poll thousands of different Americans every year, and I’m struck at how consistent the responses are.
For instance, magazines—the love affair with the printed magazine has been strikingly consistent across the years. The majority would rather read a magazine article in print than on the web.
Another consistency across the generations is when you ask people to rank their favorite media subscriptions, what always comes out on top is their broadband connections. It's not a sexy thing to think about, but broadband is always in the top. With all the new devices coming out, I’m always a little surprised at that.
What's the most important thing media buyers and planners can take away from it?
I think what they can take away is, look at the data and don’t listen to the pundits or conventional wisdom. If you to the pundits or conventional wisdom, TV’s demise has been coming for years. The format has been attacked, along with the 30-second spot, and you’ve seen the data—consumption of TV, no matter how you slice it, it’s still incredibly strong, it’s at the top of the stack. So if you’re a media planner or buyer, TV is not dead.
Advertising in videogames, I know that’s something over the years that’s been thought of as something good to reach particular a target, but our data doesn’t show that. In-game advertising is very low down in terms of impact, so I think a media planner or buyer should look at that.
And another thing is, you’re not marketing anymore to individuals in a vacuum. The one-to-one or one-to-many model that the industry has relied on for the past 50 years, it’s not optimal anymore.
What you do now is you market to a very vocal group of people who are very connected and have as much access to your buyer as you do.
The people who love motorcycles online will have as much impact as the people marketing motorcycles. So marketers and buyers need to think about that as well. It’s not about placing banners on social networks; it’s about going there and seeing how people interact with the brand, and finding out what it really means to them. That’s a huge message that comes out of this data.
Why did Americans rate TV so much higher on their list of favorite activities this year compared to last?
TVs always been high. It’s always a lot of hours. Bigger than the web. It’s not that TV all of a sudden came from nowhere. But it has shown increased strength. So there are upticks.
There’s data that shows that people are not buying DVDs like they used to or games for their gaming consoles, they’ve dialed down on their spending, and I think TV has been a beneficiary of that.
Over the air is free, the price of a TV has dropped significantly, many people probably have triple play [cable, internet and phone service bundled], because we know how important an internet subscription is. They don’t have money to go out, many have DVRs, and I think all of these factors conspire in a downturn to make TV an attractive entertainment property.
How much has the recession and a desire for cheap entertainment helped drive up TV viewing year to year?
The thing about TV is it’s always been popular.
Take the TV set out of the equation--it’s the content people are watching. You see people going online to places like Hulu, so clearly people are very comfortable going online and watching TV content. TV has a lot going for it. All these new technologies only strengthen the love affair, because now people can find other ways to watch their shows.
Also, our multitasking data shows that 26 percent of Americans say that all they do when they watch TV is watch TV. That’s a pretty big number, especially when you consider all the different devices people have in their pockets and in their living rooms right now.
What were some of the biggest differences between this year and the first year you did the study?
One big change that we’ve seen is this rise of GPS data. Like in your car, we’ve seen a lot more of that on handhelds. And what we believe is driving that is more apps on new smartphones, where people can not only use it as a GPS to find their way from point A to point B, but all these new services that have developed—find me the nearest Thai restaurant, the nearest Starbucks, etc. Tying information to where you’re physically located, we’ve seen a big increase in that.
Another change we’ve seen is the drop in multitasking. It goes against our intuition--we think Americans would be more and more distracted. But the reality is we’ve seen a real decline in people’s multitasking. They’re much more focused now overall when watching a TV show than they were three or four years ago.
Respondents report a lot of experimenting with the way these shows are delivered. Which methods have gained the most momentum and have the brightest future, and which could fade away? Why?
The conventional wisdom was, sure, people will watch clips on YouTube, but they’ll never watch TV content.
Well, Hulu disproved that. It showed people will happily watch a half-hour show on their PC. Clearly Americans have experimented with long-form content on the web and they’re fine with it.
The other wisdom said people wouldn’t want to watch content on a handheld device, but Americans are very happy to consume content on an iPod and Android device, etc. If Americans have a spot in their life where they want or need content, they won’t care about the device. People are updating their Facebook status from their phone—people say, “Isn’t it easier to do that on a PC?” Sure, but if you don’t have your PC, those apps are hugely popular.
So you’ll see a lot of experimentation, and the consumer wants it. If you give them the freedom to do something they couldn’t do in the past, they gravitate to it. American consumers love the possibility of doing new things that are convenient for them.
What are the biggest differences in media preferences between millennials/Xers and boomers/matures?
So you see the millennials being the early adopters now. It used to be the older, middle-aged males who had money. Middle-aged males bought the first DVD players because they were $1,000, and that’s the way it worked. And eventually the prices come down and it becomes a mass market product.
What you see now is devices are getting a lot less expensive. And the apps and operating systems are less expensive, so the devices and software are both coming down in price and the kids are now experimenting. They introduce us to texting, or to social networking. They use the most features on their phone—they use everything. An older person might just use the camera or texting, but a millennial will use everything. And then you see the older generation start picking it up.
Why does TV rank as the most influential medium when it comes to advertising? How does that differ among the old and young?
One of the reasons I think it’s as influential as it is is the sheer amount of time Americans spend watching TV relative to other activities. TV ads are typically very highly produced, slick creations. The 30-second spot has been around for a while, and we’ve gotten good at producing them. They can be entertaining and traded online, people talk about them—so given the amount of time and the quality of advertising, I think those are a couple key factors in how influential TV still is.
And also, it’s one of the few things that has such reach. There are very few other outlets we have where you can reach 20 million people at the same time. There’s a lot more fragmentation now, but still, right now a top-rated half hour show delivers millions, and you’d be hard pressed to deliver that amount of people in any other way.
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