The Stats Behind TV's Digital Transition

Digitalsmiths just released the results of its quarterly survey on Pay-TV providers, content owners and consumer electronics manufacturers. This quarter’s survey polled 3,144 consumers in North America and sheds light on the digital transition happening in the TV and movie industry.

Tablets And Smartphones

The modern world of TV and movie watching goes far beyond the screen of a traditional television set.

Of those polled in the survey, 81.4 percent now own an Apple Inc. AAPL iPad or other tablet or smartphone, a 5.4 percent increase year-over-year (Y/Y). Of those respondents, 60.4 percent watch video content on one or both of the device types, up 2.0 percent Y/Y.

According to the survey, the most popular video content types being watched on tablets are movies (26.9 percent), TV/movie previews (21.4 percent), and TV reruns (20.0 percent).

For smartphone users, news (15.6 percent), movies (15.3 percent) and TV/movie previews (14.4 percent) were the three most popular videos content types.

Other Devices

When it comes to other TV-viewing devices, the survey indicates that 42.5 percent of respondents own a TV-oriented connected device other than a tablet or smartphone. The most popular devices include Wi-Fi-enabled Blu-ray Players (13.0 percent), Smart TVs (12.9 percent) and Apple TVs (8.4 percent).

In addition, respondents listed Nintendo Co Ltd NTDOY Wiis (24.9 percent), Sony Corp SNE PlayStations (22.8 percent) and Microsoft Corporation MSFT Xboxes (22.0 percent) as the most popular connected gaming consoles.

Social Discovery

Another key frontier in the modern digital world is social media, and the Digitalsmiths survey shows that the TV and movie business is no exception.

According to the survey, 14.8 percent of respondents post about video content they have watched on social media sites such as Twitter Inc TWTR and Facebook Inc FB. However, perhaps more importantly, nearly a third (31.0 percent) of respondents report that they choose to watch video content based on social media “buzz,” up more than 12.4 percent in the past two years.