Younger TV Viewers Use Tech More to Catch Up on Favorite Shows

Younger adult viewers are 2.5 times more likely than older ones to be technologically proactive (e.g., resort to the web or DVRs) in catching up on TV shows they’ve missed, with more than half of older viewers doing nothing or waiting for reruns if they miss an episode, according to a Nielsen Company study, reports MarketingCharts.

Some 56 percent of 18-34-year-old adults use new technologies such as digital video recorders, the internet, video on demand and MP3 players to follow their favorite series, compared with 21 percent for viewers over age 55, the study found. (See table of the ways that TV watchers [breakdown by age group and gender] catch up on broadcast TV Shows.)

“Younger viewers have been faster than older generations to adopt new television options, but since technology adoption is increasing within all age groups, this study gives us a glimpse into a future when all viewers will take more initiative to catch up on shows they have missed,” said Steve McGowan, Nielsen SVP, Client Research Initiatives. “This will have tremendous implications on how networks schedule and distribute their programming.”

The study also found that, when they did go online to watch streaming television over the internet, more viewers (50 percent) reported going to ABC.com than any other site. The next most popular sites were NBC.com and CBS.com, at 41 percent and 37 percent, respectively. (See table of the sites visited for watching full episodes of TV shows [breakdown by age group and gender].)

Among the other highlights from the full study:

• Among all respondents, findings were fairly similar among men and women, as well as by income. However, a slightly larger proportion of men (32 percent) relied upon the DVR to stay current (27 percent for women).
• DVR ownership is second only to age in how aggressive respondents are to staying current with their favorite shows. Nearly 60 percent of all DVR owners use the device to stay current. (DVR penetration among the respondents was more than twice as large as in Nielsen’s national TV panel: 46 percent vs. 20 percent).
• The single largest factor that drove awareness of internet-based streaming alternatives was not whether there was high-speed internet access at home but whether the respondents had iTunes loaded on their home PCs.
• 25 percent of respondents said they had watched a full-length episode streamed online in the past three months, led by 18-34-year-olds (39 percent). Only 11 percent of older (55+) respondents said they had done so.
• Respondents were more likely to network websites to watch full episodes, even if they had iTunes on their computer.

About the data: The Nielsen study (pdf) was conducted in October 2007 with more than 1,500 adults at the CBS Television City research facility in Las Vegas.