FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA INQUIRIES: Carrie
Krysanick, Dan Pinger Public Relations, 513/564-0700
OTHER INQUIRIES: Cary
Nadel, Burke, Inc. 203/431-5901
Tim Washer,
NFO Interactive 203/618-8606
Individuals With Internet Access
Spend
Almost Four Hours Per Week
Watching TV While Online
Cincinnati,
Ohio, and Greenwich, Connecticut (November 14, 2000) – Individuals
with Internet access report, on average, spending 3.8 hours a week both
watching television and being online. For many of those individuals, the
information they are seeking when both online and watching TV revolves around
the program they are watching.
Six percent of Internet-enabled
individuals who viewed “Survivor,” for example, report that they went to the
CBS Web site to get information about the show at some time while they were
watching it. For both NBC’s Olympics coverage and ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire,” 8 percent of Web-connected viewers indicate that they have been
on the program Web site while watching. For CBS’s “Big Brother,” 16 percent of
Internet-enabled viewers report going to the show Web site for information
while they were watching the program being broadcast.
The Study
These findings, from a new study
jointly conducted by Burke, Inc. and NFO Interactive, suggest that program
advertisers can increase their exposure to audiences by also looking for
sponsorship opportunities on program Web sites. The study, “Connecting With
Viewers: TV Programs and Their Web Sites,” surveyed 8,605 NFO Interactive
panelists to discover more about the evolving relationship between television
and the Internet.
Adults surveyed via the Internet from
October 9 to October 25 were first asked which of 315 programs on 27 broadcast
and cable TV programs they had personally watched in the three months prior to
being surveyed. Viewers of programs were then asked if they had ever gone to
the network Web site for that program and, if so, whether they had gone to the
Web site for program information during or after their viewing. Viewers of each
network were also asked if they had ever decided to watch a program as a result
of visiting that network’s Web site.
The Results
“Some have suggested that the Internet
is killing TV,” said Cary Nadel, a Burke
vice president who directs the company’s information, communications, and
entertainment research practice area from his Ridgefield, Connecticut, office.
“The findings from this study, however, show that Internet use not only
coexists with TV viewing, it can encourage and enhance the viewing experience.”
There
is a strong relationship between television viewership and online activity. The
more someone uses one media, the more that individual uses the other. (See Exhibit
A.) This information helps the television networks, advertisers, and
advertising agencies plan coordinated media campaigns that can take advantage
of greater reach and frequency when both forms of media are used.
Exhibit A
Relationship between Television Viewership and Online
Usage
TV Viewership (hours per week) Online
Usage (hours per week)
Heavy (16 or more) 14.7
Moderate (10-15) 11.6
Light (0-9) 9.4
Online Usage (hours per
week) TV Viewership (hours per week)
Heavy (16 or more) 21.4
Moderate (6-15) 16.9
Light (0-5) 15.1
The growth of high-speed access to the
Internet might, however, change the dynamics of the relationship between TV
viewing and Internet use. Sixteen percent of survey respondents reported having
high-speed Internet access, and their average weekly TV viewing time was 15.9
hours, compared to 17.4 hours of weekly TV viewing, on average, for individuals
with dial-up access. Those with high-speed Internet access do, however, report
spending an average of 5.0 hours per week both being online and watching
television, compared to 3.7 hours per week for those with dial-up access.
“If networks use their Web sites
creatively, however, they should be able to migrate content back and forth
between television and the Internet,” said Tim Washer, vice president of media
and telecom practice for NFO Interactive. “This should enable them to better
serve broadband users. It might also help networks better serve program
sponsors by opening up additional advertising opportunities for them on the
Internet.”
Thirty-two
percent of study respondents indicated that they had spent less time watching
television than usual in the month prior to taking the survey, while 52 percent
said they had spent the same amount of time as usual and 17 percent said they
had spent more time watching TV than usual. Those who said they had been
spending less time watching TV were asked to select from a list of other
activities to indicate what they had been doing instead of watching TV. Most of
those who indicated watching less TV did not mention being online, and less
than 2 percent of all individuals surveyed mentioned being online exclusively
as the activity they were engaging in instead of watching television.
For more information about how to obtain the full data set for the “Connecting With Viewers” study, please contact Cary Nadel (203/431-5901) or Tim Washer (203/618-8606).
Based in Cincinnati, Burke, Inc. (www.burke.com) is an international business
research and consulting firm that assists clients worldwide in the collection,
analysis, and integration of marketing, organizational, and other related
information. Based in Greenwich, Connecticut, NFO Interactive (www.nfoi.com) is a global leader of Internet
and full-service market research to the business community.
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