Nielsen reported monthly hours of viewing for all age groups (see below) in May 2008 in it’s “Third Screen Report”. You’d have to be blind not to notice the age differences. Based on this and other TV viewing reports, I have a theory about what is happening to TV viewership among Millennials. It goes like this:
1. Appointment-style primetime TV viewing habits are pretty much dead, even for ‘destination shows’. According to Millward Brown, nearly half of Millennials (45%) use a DVR ‘regularly’ or ‘fairly often’ and another 25% say they are considering buying one in the next year. The Heroes season opener derived 33% of its viewership from time shifted viewing.
2. Primetime viewing is largely social. According to Knowledge Network, 39% of Millennials watch primetime outside of their own home at least once a week, compared to just 11% of young boomers and 21% of Gen X’ers. I presume outside of home means other people’s homes, a gym, bar or other social gathering place. 55% watch primetime with other people in the room, vs. 41% for young boomers. This suggests other technologies have a stronger claim on Millennials’ ‘alone’ viewing time than primetime TV, another signal (pun intended) that TV is becoming marginalized for ‘right now’ viewing.
3. Internet video is becoming a reasonable alternative to TV for personal viewing. Over one quarter (27%) of Millennials go to websites to watch video vs. only 9% of boomers (Millward Brown). According to Nielsen, 18-34 year olds spend an average of 3-4 hours a month watching Internet video. My college-age daughter loves Masterpiece Theatre, but does not feel compelled to watch the latest episode at 9:00 on Sunday night when she can view it anytime on the web. My high school age son is as likely to watch a movie he downloaded to his laptop as TV or a DVD. I can’t recall the last time he purchased a DVD. He is very interested in Apple’s iTV. (Is that the next ‘must have’ Christmas item?)
4. The so-called ‘third screen’, mobile video, may move to second place soon. Nielsen reported that as of May 2008, 18-34 year olds with video enabled phones viewed video this way 3-4 hours a month, a figure similar to that of video on the Internet. Younger people with video enabled phones watched even more.
While the changes now are mostly confined to Millennials and their younger siblings, you only have to think of the explosion in text messaging to know it won’t be long before their parents follow. If these patterns hold, we are moving toward a model where the venue is less important than the content. Soon, it will all be simply ‘video entertainment’, with viewing devices presenting alternative formats for watching the same stuff. Each format will offer different advantages in the user experience, but the same content. In that world, does it even matter that Heroes and SNL are on NBC? From a branding standpoint, channels simply won’t matter. It will all simply be ‘video’.
