If You Had To Pick One or The Other: TV or Internet?

Be assured to know you don’t have to make an either/or choice, but in a recent Internet and Multimedia 2006 survey conducted by Arbitron and Edison Media Research (PDF here), when given a choice of whether to keep the Internet and drop TV or vice versa, four in ten would choose to keep the Internet and eliminate television. This figure shows how far the Web has come in being part of people’s lives. Keeping the Internet over TV was only chosen by 26 percent in a similar survey five years ago. The new survey also reveals that among 12- to 34-year olds, a majority would eliminate television in favor of the Internet. This indicates where the future is headed.

Some other significant findings from the study include:

• Video On Demand consumers have grown from 27 million last year to 57 million this year. Video On Demand is defined as “TV shows, movies and other video programming accessed on request through a cable TV provider. This programming is not recorded or saved, but can be controlled (pause/forward/rewind) by the consumer using their cable TV remote.”

• When consumers are asked what are the most life-changing technologies affecting their lives, their top two answers are broadband Internet and cell phones.

• Internet video and radio audiences have increased 50 percent in the last year.

• One in six Americans feel that broadcast network television programming has become too dirty and explicit for their tastes.

• As an interesting counterpoint to the above finding, the study notes that nearly one in four Sirius satellite radio subscribers acquired the service specifically to listen to Howard Stern.

• The number of people purchasing online has grown four-fold since 1999.

• 25 percent of people with home Internet access frequently use the Internet while watching TV in the same room.

• About 30 percent of Americans say they are spending less time with traditional media because of the amount of time they are spending online.

The free 42-page report is filled with interesting facts for marketers. A total of 1925 people ages 12+ throughout the U.S. were interviewed for the survey.