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AUSTRALIA’S FIRST EVER MULTI-SCREEN REPORT REVEALS EVOLUTION IN TELEVISION VIEWING

New technologies such as personal video recorders (PVRs), Internet-delivered video, tablets and smartphones, coupled with burgeoning up-take of digital terrestrial television (DTT), are increasingly impacting Australians’ television viewing habits.

The first Australian Multi-Screen Report – compiled collaboratively by global information and measurement company, Nielsen, and Australia's official television audience measurement providers, OzTAM and Regional TAM – shows the extent to which new technologies are stimulating and enhancing viewing of broadcast content (‘video’) beyond conventional television sets.

The ability to view video content continues to be stimulated and enhanced by the advancement of technology beyond conventional television sets. Smaller, more mobile devices and improved connectivity are also providing new opportunities.

This report highlights the trend of video viewership1 in Australian homes across televisions, computers and mobile smartphones by combining2 data from the OzTAM and Regional TAM ratings panels and Nielsen’s National NetView panel, Nielsen Online Ratings, Nielsen Australian Online Consumer Report and Consumer & Media View database.

The overall hierarchy of viewership across all technologies, along with increasing content convergence, continue to show a strong positive relationship with screen size, with viewers demonstrating a preference to watch content on the largest screen available.

Access to digital terrestrial television broadcasts continues to increase. During the course of 2011, two Television Audience Measurement (TAM) markets switched off analogue transmission – Regional Victoria (May) and Regional Queensland (December). This, along with the declining prices of new TV sets, has continued to drive the incidence rate of digital TV sets.

As at the end of Q4 2011, 95% of all homes were estimated to have access to digital broadcasts on at least one TV set in the home.

• This estimate is up from 90% for Q1 2011.
• Homes that can receive digital terrestrial broadcasts on all television sets in the home increased during 2011 from 55% to 70%.
• The combination of these two factors gives more viewers greater choice and access to broadcast content and stimulating viewership via more traditional means.
• Average monthly time spent viewing all broadcasts in the home has increased by 6.1% (or 6.5 hours) when compared to Q4 2010. It is worth noting that television viewing behaviour (as seen in Table 2) reflects the seasonality fluctuations, with increased viewing during winter time.

An increasing proportion of homes also have access to time-shifting devices such as PVRs allowing for more opportunity to control and dictate personal viewing schedules. Currently 44% of all homes have access to PVR functionality in their homes.

• The increasing penetration of this technology may be contributing to the increase in overall playback viewing observed during 2011.
• Average monthly time spent viewing in playback mode has increased by 4.5 hours (60%) since Q4 2010 to an average of 12 hours per month.