We have wondered for some time whether television will lose viewers to the Internet. Now an IDC international study of consumer online behaviour found that the Internet is the medium on which online users spend the most time (32.7 hours/week).
This is equivalent to almost half of the total time spent each week using all media (70.6 hours), almost twice as much time as spent watching television (16.4 hours), and more than eight times as much time as spent reading newspapers and magazines (3.9 hours).
In South Africa, if a similar study was to be conducted, figures may not reveal the Internet as the number one viewing experience because so many people are still unable to use this form of communication. However, the international study indicates the way things will go once more of the population are exposed to and can afford the Internet.
“The time spent using the Internet will continue to increase at the expense of television and, to a lesser extent, print media,” said Karsten Weide, programme director, Digital Media and Entertainment at IDC. “This suggests that advertising budgets will continue to be shifted out of television, newspapers, and magazines into Internet advertising.”
The data also confirms that the media people grow up with becomes the dominant form of entertainment. The older the respondents, the more they consume TV, newspapers, and magazines; the younger they are, the more the Internet displaces usage of traditional media.
Using search engines (84 per cent of respondents), mapping and navigation services (83 per cent), personal research (77 per cent), and using email (76 per cent) are the most frequent online activities.
