The consumption of television and video on mobile devices and other technology platforms has increased by 85% since 2010, according to a study by Ericsson, which also indicates that on-demand content viewing grew 50% in the last six years.
Day by day the competition between traditional television, pay TV and the new entertainment and streaming platforms becomes stronger. Traditional broadcasters have defended their businesses from the rising tide of broadcast services. The heaviest path falls on the part that apparently has fewer advantages, and is the ITV (Interactive Television System), which must not only compete with its peers, but with a great mix of technology, investment and innovation, which sometimes fails to match, despite their obvious efforts. It is no longer surprising that the television and video scene is increasingly dominated by Facebook, Amazon Prime, Apple, Google and Netflix (Faang).
The latest study by DeGroote Consulting, an expert company in the media, marketing and internet business, indicated that the ITV budget for 2018 was $1,138,750,000, while Netflix had originally announced an $8 billion budget, it increased, reaching estimates between $12 million and $13 million in content production during 2018.
Alex DeGroote, owner of the company assures that "the ITV is brilliant, but it works with limited resources".
On the other hand, the diffusion of free promotional content through television channels, especially public or national, makes them lose time and money.
Paid television transmissions are also interrupted by paid advertising, something that does not happen in streaming platforms, where you can watch all the episodes of the seasons of a given series, movies, shorts or documentaries without interruptions, if it fits the customer's taste.
All these factors make us see with concern a not very promising future for linear television, pay TV, satellite, or wired, and it is that, perhaps as investments, creations, innovations and ways of making content from streaming platforms continue to advance, they could be left behind.
The great challenge for those who still believe and bet on keeping the business standing is to adapt to the needs of the different types of audience, who are still consumers of the ITV, and make the statistics begin to progress or at least maintain, and capture their needs so that they are resolved with innovative and creative content that they deserve.
Regardless of the devices by which the audience decides to watch their entertainment content, it will still be television but adapted to other platforms, and ways of being and doing content.
By 2015, 19 experts in the field of interactive television carried out an analysis which conclusion was that television will remain over time if and only if it meets the great challenge of adapting to the creation of multiplatform content. Already today it is a fact that large television networks broadcast their content through television and the Internet.
What used to be a consumption restricted to the home, became a "to go" consumption, as these platforms provide the freedom to carry content, wherever users go.
Mariola Cubells, a television analyst at Cadena SER, said precisely for this report that "it is true that television is now seen in other media. Now we can watch programs on deferred, or on our Smartphone. What a wonder!
On the other hand, new data from Nielsenshows that the traditional use of television continues to decline steadily. It also shows that connected TV is recovering much of the losses of live TV.
Nielsen points out that the average adult watched 29 hours and 12 minutes of live television per week (4 hours and 10 minutes per day) in the first quarter of 2018. Viewing has decreased by 4% since the first quarter of 2017 and 8% since the first quarter of 2016.
The display of time shifts, primarily through a DVR (Digital Video Recorder or PVR, Personal Video Recorder), the device for recording video in digital format, offset some of the losses of live television. Nielsen data is averaged over all adults with and without the technology. The difference between traditional and average TV users is not large (2%). However, for other less adopted devices, the difference is much greater. DVRs are in about half of U.S. households. The average DVR user watches almost an hour per day of TV, compared to the 36 minutes per day for the average adult.
According to data from Nielsen's study, in the last two years, much of the time lost on television has been transferred to the broadcast media player. The average adult watched 3 hours per week on devices such as Roku and Apple TV in the first quarter of 2018. Usage has increased 96% since the first quarter of 2016, 1 hour and 29 minutes per week. Traditional television lost 2 hours per week during the same period.
Nielsen says that broadcast media players reach 36% of the population of the United States (USA). The average user of the streaming media player watches videos with his device for 8 hours per week (1 hour and 8 minutes per day). Roku reports that the average daily streaming usage for each of its 20 million active users is 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Nielsen does not measure video transmission on smartphones directly. It monitors the time spent in applications whose primary function is video transmission. The company counts the activity of Netflix and YouTube in this total, but not the activity of Facebook and WSJ (Wall Street Journal). However, the data is useful to assess the increase in video activity.
An average adult spent 1 hour 7 minutes per week on video applications during the first quarter of 2018, a 43% increase year over year and a 191% increase over the first quarter of 2016. People 18-34 years old use the video smartphone the most. The average person in that age range spent 1 hour and 45 minutes per week using the applications in the first quarter of 2018.
Nielsen says that 58% of the adult population uses video applications for smartphones and that the average user spends 1 hour 56 minutes on applications, per week.
Nielsen data shows that the average adult in the U.S. is watching 8% less live TV than two years ago. Most of the losses from traditional TV viewing are transferred directly to the connected TV.
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