The average person around the world spent nearly three hours a day in front
their television last year, according to a report released Monday. Eurodata TV
Worldwide said that television viewing was holding up despite more and more
people switching to online platforms like Netflix and Amazon.
Americans and Canadians are the biggest TV addicts, said the report, watching
four hours and three minutes on average daily.
The data gathered from 95 countries showed that European viewers came next, watching three hours and 49 minutes a day in 2017, just
ahead of Russia and Brazil.
A man watches TV. /VCG Photo
A man watches TV. /VCG Photo
"The length of time people watch television is holding up despite the growing
availability of online content," said its vice president Frederic Vaulpre as the
report was presented at MIPTV, the world's biggest TV market in Cannes, France.
"There was a slight fall in TV viewing in North America and Asia, but it is
still growing in South America and in Europe it is maintaining historically high
levels," he added.
Asians watch less TV than any of the other major markets, spending two hours and 25
five minutes in front of the box. In China that drops to two hours and 12 minutes.
A Chinese family watch TV. /VCG Photo
A Chinese family watch TV. /VCG Photo
Switching to mobile phones
But viewing habits were also changing, the report found. Replay services on
average "added an extra eight percent to audiences" in the 35 countries where
they were measured.
And millennials and young adults were spending more time on their mobile phones,
often catching up with programs that way.
In Sweden, one of the most digitally advanced countries in the world, young
adults watched slightly less than two hours of TV a day. Eurodata TV found that
most young people who watched programs on the Internet and on replay services
were logging on for show aimed specifically at them. These included reality shows and youth dramas whose audiences were sometimes more than twice as big on the internet than they were for broadcasts.
Children watches video on iPad. /VCG Photo
Children watches video on iPad. /VCG Photo
The US and
Britain remain the world's two biggest exporters of TV programs and formats,
ahead of France, Germany and Turkey, whose family-orientated soaps have been big
hits across the Middle East, South America and the Balkans.
But the report found that there were fewer big international blockbuster shows
like "The Voice" than in the past.
"Local productions always go down best" in most markets, said Avril Blondelot of Eurodata TV. She said the big trend was for producers and TV channels to "create content aimed a particular niche audiences (young people, women or older people) rather than look for something that tried to take in a mass cross-over audience."
Source(s): AFP