How do you catch your favourite TV shows?
Are you ever in to watch anything when it’s actually on? New stats show that this is the first year ever to see a drop in the number of TV sold sets in the UK, while in the US, people are abandoning their flat screens in favour of catching up via on line services such as Netflix and Amazon Instant Video on their laptops, tablets and smartphones.
Mobile devices have now firmly entrenched themselves in the mainstream, and anytime, anywhere content access is no longer the exclusive preserve of the uber cool fringe or youth contingent. In all likelihood, most of our parents have started a light flirtation with YouTube or BBC iPlayer accessed on an iPad or phone.
An ad hoc straw poll among the Jump team showed that the amount of live TV being consumed is on the slide. Most of us use catch-up and PVR-based viewing for convenience and OTT content is widely used by the Jump team. Our choices vary from Amazon to Netflix, iPlayer to proprietary OTT offerings from pay-TV providers. There’s also a bit of a love affair going on with YouTube ‘How To’ videos (naming no names, of course!).
There’s no doubt that the hype around Netflix and its OTT peers is translating into actual viewers and subscription dollars. Coupled with
reports that alternative forms of content consumption will quadruple in the next five years, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the good old goggle box has had its day.However, in all the excitement surrounding the new and shiny, we do tend to forget that terrestrial TV still dominates the broadcast and content delivery landscape. According to
by Analysis Mason earlier this year, “Viewer satisfaction with the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform is high with 43% of households using it to access their primary television services.”The Jump team remain, for the most part, loyal to our old friend the TV. But who knows, will next year see us throwing out our old TV sets? Watch this space – or rather you may want to catch up on your iPlayer later.