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The average American watches more than five hours of TV per day, but pretty soon that leisure time may be dominated by YouTube and other online video services.
In an address at CES 2016, YouTube's chief business officer Robert Kyncl argued that digital video will be the single biggest way that Americans spend their free time by 2020 – more than watching TV, listening to music, playing video games, or reading.
The amount of time people spend watching TV each day has been pretty steady for a few years now, Mr. Kyncl pointed out, while time spent watching online videos has grown by more than 50 percent each year. Data from media research firm Nielsen shows that it's not just young people watching online videos, either: adults aged 35 to 49 spent 80 percent more time on video sites in 2014 than in 2013, and adults aged 50 to 64 spent 60 percent more time on video sites over the same time period.
Why the shift?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday January 13 2016, @01:57PM
The average American watches more than five hours of TV per day
Those numbers are meaningless because the curve is less bell shaped than even income and wealth. The actual curve is log or exponential (I can't remember) and the half point is somewhat over one hour, and then that curve is merged with vegetables (diagnosed or otherwise) who lay in hospital beds or on couches and "watch" 16-24 hours per day every day, because they're basically dying. Think like nursing home dayrooms where hundreds of people that can't stand up anymore stare at a TV for 16 hours per day. Generally pretty sad stuff. You can have a lot of fun by asking for the two separate curves of under 6 hours and over 6 hours. Also for fun ask for the demographics, over 6 hours there's almost nobody over $15K/yr and mostly 60+ yrs old, basically FOX news viewers LOL.
One aspect carefully not discussed is the social / cultural effect of atomization. So in the 70s everybody watched MASH or whatever, and it was a shared cultural experience. You go to work and everyone LOLs at the Radar Oreilly or whatever. However the decline has been sharp enough that only say 9 million people watch my wife's favorite show, "the amazing race". For folks who never seen it, its the usual reality/gameshow format but for world travel, and she's a total travel tart, so after she memorized every Rick Steves video she has to watch "something" so thats it. Now the atomization effect is only 9 mil out of 320 mil people watch the race. So about 98% of the population or 49 in 50 won't watch this free show. Personally I don't like the show. Anyway the relevant point is your close human tribe is small enough that she almost certainly doesn't hang out with any fans. TV is "bowling alone" now, whereas in the old days TV was a shared cultural experience, supposedly 1/3 the living human population of the country watched the last episode of MASH together... Those days are gone and are not coming back.
Anyway atomization is important because when I'm too tired to chill by playing modded minecraft, I'll watch my favorite youtube lets play guy, direwolf20. I've watched all his series and gotten all kinds of interesting ideas I've applied to my own play. Also he's just kinda fun, and when he's in a group or team of players its all LOL. So I'm a fan, and he's officially VLM recommended. Anyway about half a million people watch him along with me, some fans probably here. Now that sounds horrific compared to the stats for The Amazing Race at twenty times higher but it turns out not to matter at all. See there are so few fans of the race that my wife is a lonely viewer all by herself, and I am too. When there is no shared culture anymore, there is no stigma against not participating in the non-existent shared culture. Something else to think about is DW20 is one dude and a low production cost, much less than 1/20th what goes into the amazing race... economically they're doomed in the long run. The revenue is probably a bit more than 20x for the race, but the cost of revenue must be 100 to 10000 times as high. DW20s profit margin must be insane.
So atomization means there's metastability at 20% of the population viewing and up, and also basically at 0% viewing any individual video.
That metastability and long term trends means the dinosaurs who still operate thinking 1/3 of the population will watch MASH 2.0 together are going to get absolutely crushed when basically all of the population abandons them.
Its already happened with kids. In my generation my sister and I watched the crap Disney and Nickelodeon and MTV shoveled, more or less. My kids watch youtube based on recommendations from their facebook friends. My kids don't watch cable, not even MTV. Not because I force them off the TV (although I probably should, given the cultural garbage those networks shovel now) but because the school district issues ipads and TV networks are dead technology, like 8-tracks.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday January 13 2016, @07:31PM
The average American watches more than five hours of TV per day
How do they know? Like most everyone else my cable box is plugged into my TV. Like most everyone else so are my PS3, Roku, and DVD player. Even when the TV is set to one of these other inputs as far as the cable box knows I'm watching TV.
But, you say. When you watch TV you flip channels, pause, fast forward, rewind, etc. Being the snot that I am, occasionally while playing Borderlands I'll reach over to my cable remote and diddle it a bit. Why do I do this? I have no idea, but I get a sense of satisfaction when I do.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday January 14 2016, @12:11AM
One aspect carefully not discussed is the social / cultural effect of atomization.
This is something that reality TV gets stuck into. People watch it as a "wallpaper" type event, but it seems the families to seem to cluster around to watch Strictly Dancing or X-Factor or a Baking show or whatever, root for "their" favourites week after week, and tune in to watch it live.
However as Mark Gatiss rightly states:
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-11-09/mark-gatiss-overnight-figures-are-insane--people-will-be-watching-doctor-who-long-after-bake-off-is-over [radiotimes.com]
But Gatiss warns against comparing the "temporary popularity" of shows like Bake Off and The X Factor with a show with a "proper legacy" such as Doctor Who.
"Those episodes of Bake Off or The X Factor, and their virtues are manifest, will never be watched again. Yet Doctor Who will be watched in 50 years' time, 100 years' time. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I love things to be popular, I want things to be watched, but this sort of scrutiny is deadly."
"Better TV", dramas, comedys, etc, people watch when they want to. Dr Who comes out in the UK on a Saturday at some point. Rarely the same time, nobody really cares, and none of my peers know what time it's on, it just comes on at "some point" during Saturday evening, and they've watched it by Monday morning for watercooler chatting. At least when it was still good.
A mid-season episode had the following ratings
"The Zygon Invasion 3.87m (overnight) 5.76m (final) 6.49m (L+7) AI 82"
That's 3.87m watching it Saturday night, 1.89m recording it off air and watching it within 7 days, and 730,000 watching it on iplayer.
Sherlock "The Abominable Bride" was the winner of the Christmas ratings, pulling in a total of 11.6m viewers. Almost everyone in my peer group watched it (despite 4 in 5 people in the UK not watching it). 8.4m watched it the day it was broadcast, 3.2m (and most of my peer group fit into this) watched it later.
The trends are pushing against schedulers. And that's about time. If producers want that shared culture to drive viewers, they need to not only release globally at the same time, but also build a show that people want to talk about.