If you believe a global study released this morning by New York-based Accenture, the percentage of consumers worldwide who prefer watching TV shows on television sets plummeted to 23% between October and November 2016, compared to 52% in the same period one-year earlier.
That’s one of the key takeaways from the Accenture 2017 Digital Consumer Survey, and RBR + TVBR got its hands on exclusive data that shows U.S. consumers are leading this trend.
How was the Accenture survey conducted?
The pro-digital company conducted an online survey of some 26,000 consumers in the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The sample in each country was representative of the online population. Ages of respondents ranged “from 14-to-55 and over.”
To be clear, Accenture says the survey and related data modelling “quantify consumer perceptions of digital devices, content and services, purchasing patterns, preference and trust in service providers, and the future of their connected lifestyles.”
This shows it’s not exactly fielded by a group of individuals in support of broadcast or cable TV networks’ primarily delivery signals, but instead is pushing the growth of “OTT” and IP-delivered programming.
“The dominance of the TV set as the undisputed go-to entertainment device is ending,” said Gavin Mann, global managing director for Accenture’s broadcast business. “While a great number of people still watch plenty of TV shows on TV sets, our research uncovers a rapid acceleration in their preference for viewing on other digital devices — especially laptops, desktops and smartphones.”
Driving this rapid shift in consumer preferences is “the growing convenience, availability and quality of more personalized and compelling content on laptop and desktop personal computers and smartphones,” Mann added. “The massive and accelerating push by communications and media companies to provide ubiquitous content — TV everywhere including over-the-top — has empowered consumers to access high-quality content across multiple devices.”
Is it fair to place viewers in nations such as Saudi Arabia and Slovakia in the same global group as those in the U.S. and U.K.?
Here’s a glimpse, by country, of the percentages of consumers who said they prefer to watch TV shows on television sets:
Looking closer at the U.S. consumer, here are Accenture’s domestic findings:
How should media companies respond to this apparent shift in consumers’ video consumption habits?
Accenture recommends identifying new ways to engage consumers with more-personalized video content across more types of screens; using more granular consumer data, segments and predictive analytics to help anticipate consumer preferences and find content they desire; and focusing more on their target audiences to identify exactly what content their viewers want to receive — and when, for how long and on what type of screen.
