Commentary
Watching TV Shows On The Phone? Sounds Crazy, But A Continuing Trend
- by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 4, 2021
To many, it sounds nuts: Watching a TV show on your phone. Can’t people wait to get home and watch a bigger image in comfort?
Not really, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal that cites a recent survey from Branded Research in which 50% of Americans said they regularly use their mobile phones to watch streaming TV.
We get it that a
mobile device is portable -- and in many ways quite personal, especially for younger consumers, The trend is perhaps a spillover effect from the short-form video platform TikTok, where video
consumption can be high among its largely Gen Z users. Regular TikTok users can watch over an hour of that content per day, according to the study.
The other side of the argument is
obvious: You know, it’s a small screen. Doesn’t everyone want to watch “The Masked Singer” on something bigger, to see all those crazy costumes?
Not necessarily.
Watching TV shows on mobile is a trend that’s been around for a while, both before and after the demise of short-lived Quibi, which delivered TV series in bite-sized 10-12 minute increments to
subscribers.
Quibi strategists believed people waiting in line at a supermarket, in a doctor’s office, or other out-of-home locations, would want o fill their time with video
content. But Monday morning quarterbacking might now tell you a different story.
What if Quibi’s initial older-skewing targeted audiences was the wrong approach? Maybe the company
should have targeted a younger millennial/GenX/GenZ crowd. And maybe not just those waiting online at a bank, but at a Starbucks or outside at a skateboard shop.
And then there’s
this. The WSJ interviewed a 45-year-old media executive who said she watches TV on her phone at home, even when the TV set is right in front of her!
Why? Holding a phone close
to her face yields a more “intimate experience,” she says. But we’re guessing that a crucial business email might be coming her way, which keeps her looking at just one screen
For millennials/Gen Z-ers, this amounts to not missing friends’ texts or their missives on the likes of Discord, Instagram, or other social media platforms.
One screen --
with zero neck movement -- tells all.
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Wayne Friedman is West Coast Editor of MediaPost. You can reach Wayne at wayne@mediapost.com.
Wayne, I'm sure that a lot of people watch "TV"or "videos" on their phones "frequently"---like once or twice a week for five minutes per occasion. And some folks may prefer to watch an edgy , "original drama" when they are at home, sitting in front of their big screen TV set---but they use their smartphone, instead. Maybe they even "binge watch" the series, that way---watching three or four hours of its episodes continuously---sometimes. But I don't think that this kind of activity amounts to a hill of very small beans compared to the way most TV shows or videos are watched---mainly on a big screen whenever this option is available.
I remember the predictions that most people would never stream. How did that work out?
Probably as well as the predictions---or outright claims---that TV is dead, Douglas.