• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, September 10, 2013

It’s possible YuMe has seen the future of Smart TV and found out it looks a lot like...TV.

At least the ads do, according to new research from YuMe, done in conjunction with LG and Nielsen. When researchers talked to 500 smart TV consumers in June, the viewers reported that they’d rather see full-blown commercials on their connected TV content, not the pre-roll traditionally seen with online video. And their recall of ads from smart TVs far exceeded their recall of ads seen on “average” TV.

And here’s another thing. More than half of these consumers say they are spending most of their time watching free video. 

But they are also all over the place. In a week’s time, 61% say they’ll watch “free” online content, and 50% say they’ll watch paid media, like Netflix or some other service.

Taken together, here’s an interesting stat. More than half are doing nothing like that: 29% are playing games in that week, and 23% are using their smart TV for Skype video conversations.

While watching, 59% are also using a laptop, 51% are using a smartphone, 44% are using a tablet and 29% are using a desktop computer.

As for the percentages of people who watch content on different devices, the numbers are a little different, and, says David Kaplan writing in AdExchanger.com,  that's fertile ground. “One of the viewing aspects that should be attractive to both buyers and sellers is the cross-channel marketing capabilities,” he writes. “The report notes that 47% of smart TV viewers watch programming on other devices, which compares to 28% of traditional TV viewers. Way down on the list are those who self-identify as smartphone and Sony PlayStation console users -- those consumers don't appear to leave their walled gardens, as only 10% each for each of those categories say they view content elsewhere.”

A stat that says something: 17% say they think they’ll disconnect from cable in the next year, up from13% when smart TV users were asked that question a year ago. I’m kind of interested in the other 83%.  That means that even with all that extra connected TV fare, they still see a need for cable, which, to me, is extraordinary.

I keep cable even though I have a smart TV, but I often wonder if I would do that if I weren’t being paid to hang around media. There’s an awful lot you get from connected TV sets, and these are stats coming from people who, by and large, love their smart TVs: 90% say they’re satisfied, 81% said they prefer it over their traditional TV and 63% say they’d recommend it to others. Gee. How many shopping days ‘til Christmas?

pj@mediapost.com