Consumers Want a Single Source for Video and TV Content: Ericsson

by Michelle Maisto

Ericsson found that 72 percent of survey respondents use mobile devices to watch video at least weekly, and 42 percent are watching videos on devices outside the home.

“The quest has begun to become the first easy to use, à la carte TV solution provider that aggregates consumer TV and video needs,” said the Ericsson report. And still, it found the percentage of people who watch scheduled broadcast TV is now 83 percent, the same as in 2011.

At home in the evening (85 percent) is the most popular time to watch TV and videos, followed by dinner time at home (55 percent) and in bed before falling asleep (49 percent). During breakfast and in bed before getting up were the next most popular times.

The devices we carry with us have changed the TV- (and video-) watching curve. While it used to spike at breakfast time, rise in the early evening and reach its height during prime time, the curve is now smoother and higher all day, with a rise in the evening. What used to be the late-night and midday deep low, is now a viewing level on par with the old breakfast-time spike.

On-demand viewing has driven a rise in what Ericsson calls “place-shifted viewing.” A person may start a show on the bus, watch more at lunch and finish it after work, while waiting to meet up with friends. Even 41 percent of respondents ages 65 through 69 said they do this.

Ericsson Senior Researcher Anders Erlandsson says that during the early talk of mobile TV, there was an assumption that shorter shows would be made. The twist, he says, is that people are creating the “clips” themselves, “by pausing and resuming full-length TV shows and movies whenever suits them.”

“Given that 82 percent of people use YouTube or similar services at least monthly,” Erlandsson said in a statement,” we had to wonder whether watching a recipe online in the kitchen counts as ‘watching TV’ or just ‘getting instructions.'”

At least weekly, 59 percent of people visit social-networking sites while watching TV, 49 percent use apps or browse the Internet to find more content on what they’re watching and nearly 33 percent discuss what they’re watching, in chats or social networks, while they’re watching it.

People are moving away from having TVs in each room of their homes (or at least several TVs) to having one large, main TV and turning to mobile devices in other rooms. This habit, says Ericsson, is “having social implications,” with less family “campfire” time and more solo viewing.

Over the last year, habits have changed. “There are now more people who have reduced or eliminated their TV package spending than those who have increased it,” says the report. The one exception to this was China, partly due to a change in terrestrial TV network digitation there.

Recommendations from friends and family are still the No. 1 way we find the videos we watch, but it’s down from 2011 and 2012. We now increasingly also rely on lists of latest releases, user ratings, most bought/watched and suggestions showing the viewing habits of others who have watched what we’ve watched.

Consumers want a single experience that combines their video and TV content, says Ericsson. What they care about most is, in order of importance, that it’s free from ads, that it’s HD quality, that it’s “super simple” and that content is offered a la carte.