Blog Post #1 - Jaclyn Lattanza

Blog Post #1

Jaclyn Lattanza

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

According to a report from market research company Park Associates, U.S. consumers are still relying on their televisions to view video content. The nationwide survey of U.S. broadband households that was conducted in the first quarter of 2014, analyzed “how multiplatform innovation is fueling new revenue and retention opportunities for TV content owners and distributors” (McCarthy, 2014). Although many might think that viewing video content on tablet devices and smartphones have become more popular, the study showed that these households spent, on average, only 1.3 hours per week watching on tablets and 1.6 hours per week on smartphones. This doesn’t even compare to the 20 hours per week that these households spend watching video content on TV.

When the television was introduced in the early 1950s, many households’ dreams came true because “people always [had] fantasized about transmitting and receiving sounds and images across space via a box” (Miller, 4). It wasn’t until the Internet was introduced that people worried about what the future held for the device. As TV became “the most important cultural and political device in people’s homes” (Miller, 8), the Internet became popular as well. It took a while before society realized that the Internet and the TV feed off of each other to strive.

In recent years, new technology has allowed consumers to use tablets and smartphones as devices to do almost anything, including watch TV. According to this Parks Associates study though, the TV is still dominant in that area. However, this does not suggest that tablets and smartphones are not being used. The percentage of viewership on both devices have actually tripled and doubled since 2010, respectively; they are just not popular enough to take over the role of the TV. “Television is the key point of articulation between the requirements of a massively complicated economic system and the daily lives of people…” (Miller, 11). But even so, while consumers are watching video content on TV, they are still engaging in a second-screen experience with their tablet or smartphone.

In fact, a study that was conducted by the IAB earlier this year, found that three quarters of advertisers believe that “mobile video-viewing devices will become as important as TV in the next five years” (McCarthy, 2014).  

Sources:

McCarthy, John. “The US still prefers watching video content on TV to smartphones and tablets.” The Drum 19 Sept. 2014: Online.

Miller, Toby. Television Studies: The Basics. London and New York: Routledge, 2010. Print