There's good news and bad news for broadcast TV stations: the good news that the old and young are watching more TV content, but everybody in between is switching off.
That's the conclusion from Nielsen's latest multi-screen report covering the fourth quarter of last year.
It found, using OzTAM and regionalTAM data, that people aged 0-12 were watching 79 more minutes of TV per month year-on-year, through live broadcast and playback.
People aged over 65 are watching 61 more minutes of TV per month, but almost every other demographic is on the wane.
People aged 13-17 led the decline, with teenagers watching 182 fewer minutes of TV per month.
People aged 18 to 24 are watching 102 fewer minutes, and people aged 25 to 34 are watching 172 fewer minutes per month.
Overall, people are spending 90 hours and 27 minutes per month watching broadcast TV, with 91.9% of that content live TV rather than playback.
Trading director at PHD, Lucy Formosa Morgan, told AdNews that the demographic shift came as no great surprise.
“I'd be very surprised if overall screen time was down, but we've seen for quite a while that people 25-54 and younger than that have been switching to other screens,” she said.
She said the younger-skewing demographics are not seen as the most valuable demographic, but rather the hardest to reach.
“The fragmentation has made it more difficult to really hit that demographic with a TV spend, so the latest numbers really demonstrate that the fragmentation is gathering pace,” Formosa Morgan said.
She also noted that while people aged 65 or older were watching more TV by far, there was not a particular focus on reaching them as a demographic.
“From a PHD perspective, we try to hit the broadest range we can. So yes people in that demographic are watching more, but we're not necessarily trying to reach them any harder with TV than any other demographic,” Formosa Morgan said.
Elsewhere, the big tech news out of the report was that internet-capable TVs had the fastest adoption rate with 30% of homes having either a smart or hybrid TV, regardless of whether or not they were using the functionality of the set.
This is up roughly 30% from a year earlier.
Freeview chief executive officer Liz Ross told AdNews that the rise of smart TV sets within the home was a de-facto measure of the appetite for catch-up TV.
“What we've seen is that the appetite for catch-up TV is a real driver of adoption of connected TV in the home,” Ross said.
“Consumers are definitely becoming more savvy about how and where to access that content, and increasingly smart TVs are being seen as a way to do that.”
She also noted that price decreases in recent times had also driven consumer awareness and appetite for smart TV.
Freeview announced yesterday that Bauhn is the latest manufacturer to on-board the Freeview Plus EPG, with a focus on a new 55-inch 4K ultra high definition LED Smart TV to be offered in Aldi stores for $799.
“The price is definitely coming down and we are seeing that is having some impact on the appetite for smart TVs in this market,” Ross said.
Overall, 88% of all broadcast and non-broadcast content viewing took place on a TV set in the fourth quarter, reinforcing its place as the main screen in the home.
However, the amount of time viewing online video on a phone or tablet increased year on year for people above 16 years old.
Viewing was up by 16 minutes on tablets per month to 123 minutes per month, and up by 51 minutes on phone to 147 minutes per month.
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