More people using TV and tablets at same time
Do you check e-mail while you watch TV? If so, you're far from alone. — Nielsen's fourth-quarter poll of mobile users in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Italy discovered that people are increasingly checking e-mail or searching for program …
Context & Ripple Effects
The story is another data point in a run of Nielsen measurements of what happens when screens multiply: its October 2011 survey already found 40% of tablet and smartphone owners using those devices while watching TV, and a May 2011 study had framed tablets as 'TV buddies' rather than TV replacements. This fourth-quarter poll extends that picture internationally, covering mobile users in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Italy, and shows the behavior maturing from novelty into habit.
That arc began earlier still — the BBC reported online TV viewing on the rise back in 2007 — but the 2012 twist is direction of travel: instead of cannibalizing television, tablets are being used alongside it, for e-mail and program-related search. The pickup across TechCrunch, TUAW and other outlets signals how much attention the second-screen thesis was commanding among publishers and platform watchers.
First-order effects
- Advertisers buying U.S., U.K., German and Italian TV slots can no longer assume undivided attention during commercial breaks, since Nielsen confirms a growing share of viewers are checking e-mail or searching for programs mid-broadcast.
- Broadcasters and cable networks face immediate pressure to occupy that second screen themselves — companion apps, synchronized content and social features become a defensive requirement rather than an experiment.
Second-order effects
- Second-screen and social-TV startups gain a measurable market to sell into, because Nielsen's quarterly polling gives them the usage data their pitch decks previously lacked.
- Measurement firms like Nielsen shift from rating who watched to measuring what else viewers did while watching, opening a new product line around cross-device attention data.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, TV advertising economics move toward attention-based pricing, where a spot's value depends on whether the viewer's hands were on a tablet at airtime.
- Television stops being a standalone medium and becomes one surface in a multi-device session, forcing the industry to define success by combined reach across screens rather than by set-top ratings alone.
The trend: Television viewing is consolidating into multi-device sessions, with tablet and smartphone use alongside the set turning audience attention itself into the metric that matters.