News

Australian online video consumption surges 27 per cent year on year

StreamingAustralians are watching more video online with a new report claiming the amount of time spent watching online video on a PC or laptop has surged 27 per cent in a year.

The finding in the latest Australian Multi-Screen Report, claims that Australians spent 448 minutes (7hrs and 28 minutes) a month viewing streamed video such as catch up TV as well as other content such as YouTube,  on PCs and laptops up from 352 minutes (or 5hrs 52 mins) last year.

It also comes amid the growing marketing war for eyeballs as streaming video on demand services Presto, Stan and Netflix do battle over market share and building consumer awareness. 

Created by Oztam and Nielsen, the report looks at the household take-up of screen technologies and the interplay between them and reports that overall viewing time for Australians is down by 2 hours and 12 minutes per month. 

The multiscreen report looked at penetration for a number of key TV and internet devices in Australia and found that internet capable TVs were now at 30 per cent penetration (up from 23 per cent a year ago), 56 per cent of homes have a personal video recorder (up from 53 per cent), 47 per cent of homes have a tablet in the house (up from 40 per cent) while 73 per cent of Australians over 16 had a smartphone in the house (up from 68 per cent).

Technology penetration

Click to enlarge

Tablet use grew to 2 hours and 3 minutes (up from 1 hour 47 a year ago) while mobile video viewing rose to 2 hours 47 minutes on a smartphone (compared to 1 hour 56 minutes) a year earlier.

Despite the growth in online video, across devices, watching television in the home still dramatically outweighed watching TV on other internet enabled devices across all demographics, according to the report.

It found that 88 per cent of all video viewing across all screens, and including broadcast and non-broadcast content is on the traditional TV set.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

The Multi-Screen Report shows how life stage impacts media use across devices,” said Doug Peiffer, CEO of Oztam. “Teens have always been the lightest TV viewers, and as people get older and have children they stay home more and watch more TV.

“Now however Australians of all ages are viewing more on second screens, and their overall use of the TV screen is growing too. But people still turn to the main household TV first and will continue to do so. The death of TV will follow the death of the couch.”

Nic Christensen 

ADVERTISEMENT

Get the latest media and marketing industry news (and views) direct to your inbox.

Sign up to the free Mumbrella newsletter now.

 

SUBSCRIBE

Sign up to our free daily update to get the latest in media and marketing.