Australia: 1.2m view online instead of broadcast TV
November 25, 2013
According to Australian company Roy Morgan Research, the proportion of Australians streaming or downloading TV, movie or video content online and not watching live broadcast TV at all has doubled, to 6 per cent of the population — or 1.2 million people.
The company says this trend is related to two larger trends: the increase in Australians streaming or downloading video, TV and movies online (from 36 per cent to 53 per cent of the population), and the growing percentage who choose not to watch any live broadcast TV (10 per cent, up from 6 per cent).
Drilling down into the types of online content that Australians are streaming and downloading, the data shows that in the six months to September 2013, 17 per cent of Australians streamed TV, including free-to-air (FTA), in an average four-week period, while 45 per cent used YouTube, and 28 per cent streamed video.
George Pesutto, General Manager Media and Communications, Roy Morgan Research, notes that more and more Australians are choosing alternative ways of accessing television such as streaming or downloading the TV content of their choice online. “This includes catch-up and streaming services offered by local TV broadcasters that allow viewers to watch in their own time and schedule. What’s more, Netflix and YouTube now account for 50 per cent of all North American Fixed Network data consumption — almost certainly an indication of the potential future growth of video streaming in Australia.”
Pesutto says that professionals are 61 per cent more likely than the average Australian to stream or download TV content online while consuming no live broadcast TV. “It’s possible their time-poor lifestyles make them more selective of the content they consume,” he suggests.
“Streamers who don’t watch live broadcast TV are also less likely than the average Australian to consume traditional forms of media such as newspapers and magazines. Over a third of them, however, are Heavy Cinema goers (going to the movies more than twice in an average three months), making them much more likely than the average Australian to visit the cinema.”