Ericsson’s latest study into consumer trends has found that mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, are starting to displace some viewing on secondary sets.
ConsumerLab, which interviews some 100,000 respondents across 40 countries, also found evidence of decline in the PVR and increasing use of social media. However, again the bridesmaid, 3D was largely absent from the survey.
“Instead of buying another set-top box people are using devices that are already connected,” explained Niklas Rönnblom, Ericsson ConsumerLab senior advisor. Rönnblom said that while consumers were willing to pay for content on the larger screen, they were not prepared to do so on smaller devices, expecting access to services to be bundled in with a larger offer.
Around 62% of people using social networking sites while watching TV. Of these 40% are discussing what is being viewed at that moment. The trend is more prevalent among women (69) than men (62).
There is mixed evidence on the concept of cord cutting or cord shaving. In the United States 21% said they had reduced or eliminated their pay-TV subscriptions, as opposed to the 12% that said they had increased it. In the UK the figure is 15% for reduction against 14% for an increase. In Germany there were 11% on reduction and 15% for an increase.
Generally it is the developing countries including China, Brazil and Chilie where the respondents increasing their pay-TV sub is considerably higher.
Live viewing continues to be a reason to stay with pay-TV rather than depart for one of the new entrant OTT services. On demand and time shifting is now ranked by viewers as being of greater importance than picture quality.
However, 3D has had its day, not even appearing in the list of a dozen preferred features.
