More on TV Time Growing Faster than Web

First, I wanted to thank Bain & Company for providing me with more background on the news story I quoted the other day.  Frank Pinto has been an excellent and most helpful contact.  With the information he provided, I can answer some of the questions that came to mind.

• are these findings true across Europe & Asia?  yes, on average there has been a steady increase (1% annual) in European viewing over the 2001 to 2005 period.  This compares to 2% annual growth rate in US market.  There is some regional variation - for example, viewing times in the UK & France are declining.  Another interesting tidbit - Europeans watch less TV than North Americans: US viewers watch about 32 hours a week on average; UK and France, about 24 hours; Austria & Switzerland, 19 hours.
• is the interactive & personalization angle considered? yes, it certainly has been. In fact, the Bain report (The Digital Video Consumer: Transforming the European Video Content Market - 2007)  used a scenario planning methodology to look at possible scenarios to consider adoption of 'lean forward" TV.  Their conclusion is that the most likely scenario is an 'evolving' one where linear TV (lean back) remains the dominant form of viewing with slow, yet steady growth in video-on-demand, mobile video, time-shifted TV and so on.
• does interactive viewing represent a 'shift' or a 'lift' in overall TV viewing?  the answer?  a bit of both.  The overall 1% annual growth will raise overall TV viewing.  The projected adoption of 'lean-forward' TV means this will outpace linear TV viewing in the scenarios considered
• is there a viewing segmentation based on content type?  this wasn't explicitly covered in the materials I reviewed.

So, interestingly, for the bulk of US & Europe TV is alive, well & growing.

---- Kirk Edwardson