Posted on 08/22/2007 1:10:42 PM PDT by Milhous
ARMONK, NY - 22 Aug 2007: A new IBM (NYSE: IBM) online survey of consumer digital media and entertainment habits shows audiences are more in control than ever and increasingly savvy about filtering marketing messages.
The global findings overwhelmingly suggest personal Internet time rivals TV time. Among consumer respondents, 19 percent stated spending six hours or more per day on personal Internet usage, versus nine percent of respondents who reported the same levels of TV viewing. 66 percent reported viewing between one to four hours of TV per day, versus 60 percent who reported the same levels of personal Internet usage.
Consumers are seeking consolidated, trustworthy content, recognition and community when it comes to mobile and Internet entertainment. Armed with PC, mobile and interactive content and tools, consumers are vying for control of attention, content and creativity. Despite natural lags among marketers, advertising revenues will follow consumers' habits.
To effectively respond to this power shift, IBM sees advertising agencies going beyond traditional creative roles to become brokers of consumer insights; cable companies evolving to home media portals; and broadcasters and publishers racing toward new media formats. Marketers in turn are being forced to experiment and make advertising more compelling, or risk being ignored.
"Consumers are demonstrating their desire for both wired and wireless access to content: an average of 81 percent of consumers surveyed globally indicated they've watched or want to watch PC video, and an average of 42 percent indicated they've watched or want to watch mobile video," said Bill Battino, Communications Sector managing partner, IBM Global Business Services. "Given the rising power of individuals and communities, media and entertainment industry players will have to become much better at providing permission-based advertising and related consumer-driven ratings services."
The steady growth of consumer adoption of digital music, video, and other entertainment services -- though markets are still small by comparison to traditional media -- show households are no longer "one size fits all," and content providers and marketers must follow suit. 23 percent of respondents reported using a portable music service (e.g., iTunes); seven percent reported having a video content subscription for their mobile phones; 11 percent reported a PC-based music service; and 18 percent reported an online newspaper subscription.
Saul Berman, IBM Media & Entertainment Strategy and Change practice leader, said, "The Internet is becoming consumers' primary entertainment source. The TV is increasingly taking a back seat to the cell phone and the personal computer among consumers age 18 to 34. Just as the 'Kool Kids' and 'Gadgetiers'(1) have replaced traditional land-lines with mobile communications, cable and satellite TV subscriptions risk a similar fate of being replaced as the primary source of content access."
The IBM Institute for Business Value survey of more than 2,400 households in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Australia covered global usage and adoption of new multimedia devices and media and entertainment consumption on PCs, mobile phones, portable media players and more.
Television Viewing Shifts
In the largest digital video recorder market, 24 percent of U.S. respondents reported owning a DVR in their home and watching at least 50 percent of television programming on replay. Surprisingly, 33 percent in the U.S. reported watching more television content than before the DVR. More than twice as many U.K. consumers surveyed use video on demand services than own a DVR, and less than a third of U.K. consumers have changed their overall TV consumption as a result of DVR ownership. In Australia, despite owning a DVR, most respondents prefer live television or replay less than 25 percent of their programming.
Online Content Trends
Consumers are increasingly contributing to online video or social networking sites: nine percent of German and seven percent of U.S. respondents claim to have contributed to a user-generated content site; 26 percent of U.S. respondents reported contributing to a social networking site. While the numbers were slightly less from other countries like the UK (20 percent) and Japan (9 percent), they are also significant. Australia topped all countries surveyed with 36 percent contributing to social networking sites and nine percent contributing to video content sites. Of those who contributed content, an average of 58 percent worldwide did so for recognition and community, not monetary gain.
Mobile Content Trends
In the UK, nearly a third of users who watch mobile TV reduced their standard TV set viewing patterns as a result of new mobile device services. 18 percent said they reduced "normal" television by a little and another eight percent reduced "normal" television by a lot; four percent substituted television on their regular TV with their new device altogether. For respondents in Germany who had watched mobile video, 23 percent prefer to view user generated content, and 21 percent prefer video trailers or promotions.
Survey Methodology and Demographics
Conducted from mid-April through mid-June 2007 by the IBM Institute for Business Value, the Internet survey was split 64 percent female and 36 percent male. It proportionately reached demographic groups 18 years and over with approximately 45 percent surveyed between the ages of 18-34, 25 percent surveyed between ages of 35-44, and 30 percent surveyed age 45 and over. The questionnaire covered 38 questions and generated 885 respondents in the US, 559 respondents in the U.K., 338 respondents in Germany, 263 respondents in Australia and 378 respondents in Japan. Respondents reported a range of household salary levels, though the vast majority was under US $100,000.
This consumer study is a component of the upcoming report "The end of advertising as we know it," co-authored by Saul Berman and Bill Battino, planned for the fall. It is the latest in a series of thought leadership papers including: "The end of television as we know it," "Navigating the media divide: Innovating and enabling new business models" and "Beyond access: Raising the value of information in a cluttered market," providing recommendations for broadcasters, advertising agencies and media distributors including telecommunication and cable companies.
As part of its ongoing consumer research efforts, IBM is making the full survey results available for free download at: www.ibm.com/media/adsurvey07
The IBM Institute for Business Value provides strategic insights and recommendations that address critical business challenges to help clients capitalize on new opportunities. The Institute is comprised of consultants around the world who conduct research and analysis in 17 industries and across five functional disciplines, including human capital management, financial management, corporate strategy, supply chain management and customer relationship management. IBM has a strong global focus on the media and entertainment industry across all of its services and products, serving all the major industry segments -- entertainment, publishing, information providers, media networks and advertising. For more information on IBM, please visit: www.ibm.com
Editors Note: IBM also stopped young people from all over the world on the streets of New York to ask whether they prefer spending their free time online or watching TV. IBM's informal street sample found surprisingly similar results to the official survey. Video of the interviews is available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSx2llVmD-8. Broadcast-quality video is available for download by journalists at www.thenewsmarket.com/ibm.
... The networks, of course, were pushing for televised press conferences; it would not only be a breakthrough for the President, it would be a breakthrough for them, as they made the President bigger so he would make them bigger, make them more legitimate, they would, after all, not just be passing on to their audience a bunch of comedians and tap dancers, but the President of the United States, and that was serious business. ... The real exploitation would come with the man who followed [Eisenhower] in office, John Kennedy.Dwight Eisenhower had decided to make television an instrument of presidential power. Sam Rayburn, in his beloved House of Representatives, had made the exact opposite decision. It might be turning into a wired world, but he was not going to wire the House. Rayburn didn't like the print press; he despised and feared television. It simply multiplied all the dangers ofthe press without, as far as he was concerned, bringing any benefits. He hated House members who longed only to run for the Senate, and senators who longed only to run for the presidency. He was appalled by what he felt television had done to the Senate by the mid-fifties. It had become a major launching platform for presidential campaigns. He thought television had ruined the Senate as a serious body. "All they do there is preen and comb their hair and run for President. It's like a presidential primary over there," he said. He would complain to his friends that these senators were no longer rooted in their districts, no longer connected to their people and to the daily lives of their constituents. Instead, he said, they were linked to cameras and machines that made them look good. "I hate what it does," he said, and meant it. He made a deliberate decision to keep television out of the House, not just out of the main chamber but (unlike the Senate) out of the committee rooms and the corridors as well. It was one of his most important legacies: the rest of Washington might be modernizing, that was all right with him, but he was having none of it. Print was bad enough. But at least you could make a deal with certain print reporters and they honored it. But who could make a deal with the camera? When people pushed him to go on television himself he refused. "I won't sell their cereal for them," he once told Marquis Childs.
Also, and this was equally important, television threatened the House leadership in a generational sense. In the Rayburn years seniority had become the only test for leadership. Thus the leadership was very old, the dominant figures were all in their seventies and eighties; they were men who certainly had not risen to power because of their attractive appearance. Often it was quite the reverse. Television encouraged youth, it helped the young Jack Kennedy in his 1960 presidential quest, it liked vigor. And it made old men look even older. Age was the ally of the House leadership. The more isolated their district, the easier it was for them to hold power. Television broke the isolation; besides, with a single appearance a very junior, very articulate, very handsome congressman might cast a larger spell than a committee chairman. That was very threatening. The camera was thus more than an impertinence or an annoyance; it could become a genuine danger to the very power structure of the House.
ping
What’s a television?
It’s that thing I play video games on...I think.
OMG that photoshop LOL!
I watch, maybe, 6 hours of TV per week. So I have no use for cable or satellite.
By the end of this decade or shortly thereafter, television ‘networks’ as we know them today will cease to exist. After the ‘08 elections, the network news divisions will be disbanded and their evening broadcasts will go dark.
By the end of this decade or shortly thereafter, television ‘networks’ as we know them today will cease to exist. After the ‘08 elections, the network news divisions will be disbanded and their evening broadcasts will go dark.
By the end of this decade or shortly thereafter, television ‘networks’ as we know them today will cease to exist. After the ‘08 elections, the network news divisions will be disbanded and their evening broadcasts will go dark.
The basic problem is that my parents wouldn't buy me a IBM 360 or predecessor to have in my bedroom when I was growing up. Overcompensation.
When my current TV dies I’m going to use the computer LCD screen as a TV. No reason to buy another TV.
Cable companies are getting every more desparate for customers. I can tell by the deals they keep sending my way.
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