Accenture: TV Sets Losing Ground to Multiscreen Devices

April 24, 2017
According to the Accenture (NYSE:ACN) 2017 Digital Consumer Survey, the percentage of consumers who prefer watching TV shows on TV ...

According to the Accenture (NYSE:ACN) 2017 Digital Consumer Survey, the percentage of consumers who prefer watching TV shows on TV sets dropped by 55% over the past year, from 52% to 23%.

The global online survey of 26,000 consumers in 26 countries indicates that consumers increasingly prefer to watch TV shows on devices such as laptop and desktop personal computers and smartphones. Some 42% of consumers surveyed said they would rather view TV shows on a laptop or desktop, up from 32% in last year's survey. Some 13% said they prefer watching TV shows on their smartphones, compared to 10% last year.

The decline in TV viewing over the past year tracks with a four-year trend. As recently as 2014, the survey indicated that 65% of consumers preferred the TV set for viewing TV shows.

The most recent findings indicate that only 19% of consumers now prefer to watch sports games on their TVs, down from 38% in the prior-year survey.

"The dominance of the TV set as the undisputed go-to entertainment device is ending," said Gavin Mann, global managing director for Accenture's broadcast business. "While a great number of people still watch plenty of TV shows on TV sets, our research uncovers a rapid acceleration in their preference for viewing on other digital devices - especially laptops, desktops and smartphones."

The report indicates a steep decline over the past year in the percentage of India's consumers who prefer to view TV shows on TV sets. That percentage dropped 78%, from 47% to 10%. In the United States, the number fell 57% (from 59% to 25%), and the UK it dropped 55% (from 56% to 25%).

"Driving this rapid shift in consumer preferences is the growing convenience, availability and quality of more personalized and compelling content on laptop and desktop personal computers and smartphones," Mann said. "The massive and accelerating push by communications and media companies to provide ubiquitous content - TV everywhere including over-the-top - has empowered consumers to access high-quality content across multiple devices."

While consumers increasingly prefer to watch TV shows on laptops and desktops, the smartphone is becoming the preferred device for watching short video clips. In the most recent survey, 41% of consumers said they would rather view these clips on their mobile handsets, an increase from 28% last year. In contrast, the number of consumers who said they would rather watch video clips on their laptops and desktops dropped slightly, from 47% to 44% over the last year, while the number who said they prefer to view these clips on their TV sets dropped even more, from 16% to only 5%.

Between October and November 2016, Accenture conducted the online survey with approximately 26,000 consumers in 26 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. The sample in each country was representative of the online population. Ages of respondents ranged from 14 to 55 and over.