KPMG media barometer: 79% reject pay walls
December 6, 2010
KPMG’s Media Barometer surveyed a total 4,312 UK consumers from YouGov’s panel in September, for its Media and Entertainment Barometer.
Among the main findings:
—27 per cent own a smartphone. “This rose to 44 per cent and 43 per cent amongst the 18-24s and 25-34s respectively.”
—35 per cent have downloaded paid apps in the last year – a tenth of those had spent more than £10
—Just two per cent own tablets
—”Subscribers most commonly paid for music (23 per cent), online gaming (21 per cent), business news/analysis (19 per cent), online newspapers/magazines (19 per cent) and TV (19 per cent).”
—”Nine per cent (of people who don’t currently subscribe to online content) indicated they would possibly become a paid subscriber (in the next 12 months).
—”Only 2 per cent would be prepared to pay for unrestricted access to a website they use regularly if a paywall were introduced. 79 per cent would seek similar content elsewhere. ”
—”86 per cent of consumers said they preferred to consume media offline rather than online. The most popular reason was a preference to reading physical copies.”
KPMG’s media head David Elms commented: “Whilst the appetite to pay for web content is moving slowly, the pace of spending money to download content on mobile devices is moving much more quickly, particularly in the crucial 18-34 demographic.
“A key question is whether consumers, increasingly used to paying for premium content on their mobiles and tablets, will become more willing to pay for online content to their desktop – but, at the moment, it is too early to identify any discernible trends.”
“Whilst the availability of tablets and smartphones is providing consumers with wider access to media, the gap between the time spent on new media and traditional activities has not narrowed over the past year. In fact, traditional media still remains more popular particularly reading books (68 per cent) and watching TV (93 per cent).”