The TV set is still first choice for TV and video consumption in German households despite the growing popularity of smartphones and tablets, but viewing habits change.
That’s the result of a survey conducted by market research company GfK among 2,004 people above 14 years of age for German industry association ZVEI Consumer Electronics.
With a share of 94%, the TV set is the most-used device for linear television and on-demand services, followed by PC/laptop (78%) and smartphone/tablet (65%). 85% of TV sets are HD-capable, in 2012 the share amounted to just 48%.
Half of TV sets (50%) in German TV households are smart TV models (2012: 21%).
39% of TV viewers access internet content on their TV set. The vast majority (78%) uses the smart TV function of their TV set for this purpose, 23% connect the TV set to the internet using a satellite or cable set-top-box, 21% through a DVD/Blu-ray player or PVR. 19% use a games console, 15% a stick or dongle.
Almost half of the people interviewed (48%) said that accessing internet content was an important feature when buying a TV set. In 2012, this was just the case for a quarter (24%).
30% said that they are willing to pay for fee-based internet services such as video-on-demand (VOD) providers Netflix or maxdome, 53% reject this and 16% are undecided. With 38%, the willingness to pay is particularly high among people between 14 and 35 years of age.
Half of viewers (50%) use the TV channels’ catch-up services on their TV set. 39% use VOD services, in the 14-35 age group even 54%.
Interestingly, the growing consumption of on-demand content comes at the expense of linear television: Viewers, on average, watch less channels regularly than five years ago.
In addition to linear television (78%), it is important for viewers that they can access catch-up services on their TV set (55%), followed by personal content such as videos or photos (53%), video portals like YouTube of Clipfish (49%) and VOD services (45%).
