Commentary
Millennials Prefer TV Shows, But Like to Watch Online
- by Daisy Whitney , Op-Ed Contributor, January 21, 2016
All digital video eyes are on Millennials. Their habits are closely observed since they’re the demographic that will determine the future look, shape and feel of TV and video services. What
do they watch and how? What will they spend money on when it comes to video? And what will they avoid?
Surprisingly, Millennials aren’t just watching short clips. The
video content most watched by Millennials is full-length TV shows, followed by movies, according to a recent TiVo study on viewing habits
of various demos. Seventy-three percent of Millennials report they watch network and cable TV shows regularly, and are often using Hulu or Netflix as a conduit. About 61% of Millennials regularly
watch streaming content, compared to 51% of Generation X doing so. Broken down into categories, about 34% of Millennial Internet users primarily watch TV shows, while 18% watch movies, and 12% turn to
music videos.
Meanwhile, this age group continues to plant roots in digital video. This year, more than 92% of all U.S. Millennial Internet users will also be digital video viewers.
That’s about 78 million Millennial digital video viewers, eMarketer has said. The research
firm points out that these consumers are also voracious TV viewers, with adults 18 to 24 consuming more than 18.5 hours of traditional TV weekly, according to Nielsen numbers shared by eMarketer.
That’s less than the 25-year-old to 34-year-oldgroup that watched nearly 25 hours a week.
According to Strategy Analytics, about 56 million U.S. homes subscribed to at least one
SVOD service at the end of 2015.
To the casual reader this report would suggest----note, I said suggest-----that the most important people in the universe, namely "millennials", do most of their TV viewing online. This is because the survey defines the extent of this activity by terms like "regularily", whatever that means. Even if it is defined more precisely--say, more than half of TV viewing time, for example---respondents will still tend to give highly impressionistic and often inflated answers unless queried on a telecast bytelecast basis, with each show and channel named specifically. Were that done, it is likely 75-85% of the average "millennial's" total TV viewing time would have been reported as taking place the old fashioned way---in front of a TV set.