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TV Websites Grow More Popular, but Viewers Still Prefer TV Sets

Despite the growing popularity of viewing television content online, most adults (94 percent) who subscribe to cable or satellite television services prefer to watch television on traditional TV sets, according to new research by The Nielsen Company, writes MarketingCharts.

According to the study conducted for the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM):

• Some 35 percent of the adult broadband users surveyed said they had watched at least one television program (originally shown on TV) via the internet.
• Of those who sought out video content online, 87 percent watched television programs directly from a TV network website.
• 82 percent of those who watched video content online reported that they went online to find a specific television program that they had missed when it first aired on TV.

Online television viewers are not only catching up on their favorite shows; nearly 40 percent report using the internet to get the scoop on actors and upcoming episodes. See table of TV-related activities conducted online.

Asked to choose among 17 online content categories, online television viewers said they prefer to watch shorter video clips online: Movie trailers (53 percent), user generated videos (45 percent), music videos and general news segments (37 percent), comedy programs (31 percent), and sports clips (31 percent) were respondents’ top choices.

People are spending more time online each week than they were two years ago. More than half of the respondents (51 percent) reported being online for at least three hours a week in 2007. In 2005, just 41 percent of those surveyed said they spent three or more hours online per week.

Services associated with traditional television set viewing also recorded usage growth: For example, free on-demand programs and movies underwent a significant jump in usage, from 49 percent in 2005 to 71 percent in 2007; paid on-demand usage increased from 46 percent to 55 percent.

MarketingCharts has more findings from the study.