Last week Nielsen released the most recent version of its Three Screen Report, which measures consumption of television, internet and mobile media. As in releases since 2007 the study demonstrates television’s dominance in terms of time spent with the medium. On average a consumer will watch 278 minutes (4.6 hours) of “traditional” (non time-shifted) television per day.

New screen options may have a higher penetration rater but yield a fraction of television time. On average internet is used less than an hour a day. This time is also shared with television as the report highlights report that “the average consumer’s online experience at home is in front of the television almost a third of the time.” Other screen options like time-shifted television, internet video, and mobile video are each used less than 15 minutes per day.

Studying the latest report by age demographic it is obvious that television’s strength lies with the older groups. People over 65 watched traditional television almost twice as much as group aged under 18. The heaviest user group of both time-shifted video and internet usage was the 25-34 demo. The heaviest mobile video user group was the 12-17 demo.

Looking at the results by share of consumption give a slightly different perspective. Although younger age groups do not consume as much television as older groups, the relative share they spend with that medium as as high. This would be an important consideration for marketers trying to reach these groups. For all groups traditional TV reached above a 75% share of consumption time.

How long will users watch so much television and will there eventually be an equal footing in the market between these screens? It is difficult to say since there are many unknowns regarding consumer behavior, market participants and technology.

• Will today’s teenagers shift away from mobile as they grow older and buy their own HD-TVs?
• What is the behavioral ceiling for watching time-shifted TV?
• How will new products like smartphones and Net TVs affect the marketplace?
• How will content producers delineate the “windows” of movies and shows among the various screens and their distributors?

Again, it is difficult to predict the answer. I still expect the market to declare outcomes every quarter.

Last week Nielsen announced the number of Hispanic TV households had increased by 2.3% to a current total of 12.95 million. Among the top 10 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) the average growth was 1.7%. The big standout was the Dallas-Fort Worth market (#5 Hispanic  and overall DMA) which grew an incredible 3.7% to 506,020 households.

The Hispanic segment is the fastest growing segment in the Nielsen report, growing 2.3% over last year and an average of 3.8% per year since 2007. In comparison total U.S. homes grew only 0.3% last year and 1.0% per year since 2007. These latest figures give Hispanic households an 11.3% share of the national total.

As a result of this growth, Hispanic media outlets may be able to attract a greater portion of local and national advertising (Hispanic shares of media budgets normally trail the segment’s share of the market). Paradoxically it might also create an incentive for advertisers to maintain existing media budgets since their GRP objectives would be more easily attainable.

Following yesterday’s post regarding the rising in the overall online video market I wanted to focus today on individual site performance. However, I ran into a small problem regarding information availability. Usually online video press releases just delve into unique users or total video streams. These dimensions can be attractive for their simplicity but they don’t paint the whole picture.

To truly see how much video activity a site is attracting, three dimensions have to combined:

1. Amount of unique viewers
2. Amount of streams viewed
3. Video time being viewed (per stream or per viewer)

Of course online video measurement firms know this but limit the public dissemination of information, particularly it seems regarding the element of time. However, comScore has provided time information regarding the average time per viewer for Hulu and the average duration for all online videos at any site. Based on this information it is possible to draw a comparison of Hulu’s comparison to the market as a whole.

Based on this information, there was a total of 1.3 billion hours of video consumed online in the U.S. during the month of July. This is 71% more than the 770 million hours viewed in December 2008. Hulu’s traffic has also grown, serving up 46.4 million hours of video in July, up from 40.5 million hours in December 2008.

Although Hulu’s popularity has been rising, its share of the total video market has been falling. This is because it is attracting more unique viewers at a lower rate than other properties. According to comScore, 76% of the total unique viewers use YouTube (up from 66% in December) while Hulu has about a 24% share. Another challenge for Hulu is that their average video consumption is falling. In December 2009 a viewer watched 99 minutes of video but in July the figure had fallen to 73 minutes. Since Hulu has 14 million more unique viewers in July, this may be a result of lighter users entering their user base.

Unfortunately information regarding viewing time was not available for YouTube, MySpace or other video sites. I’ll keep an eye out in the future for such information. A comparison between these sites would be much more interesting.

Last week Nielsen released its Television Audience Report which includes projections through 2050 for TV households (HH) and the 18-49 demographic. The projections for the Hispanic TV households have it more than doubling in size between 2010 and 2050; growing from 13.1 million to 38.9 million households.

In terms to the 18-49 segment, which is very important to advertisers, Hispanics are projected to grow from 23.2 million to 56.8 million, more than triple the current size today.

These figures would give the Hispanic segment a 33.3% share of the total TV household market in 2050, and a 22.7% share of the 18-49 demographic. Both share figures would be approximately double 2009. The “third” portion roughly in line to with the 30.2% share the U.S. Census is projecting for the Hispanic population in 2050. I have a post analyzing the U.S. Census projections for the Hispanic segment here.

Much of this growth for the Hispanic segment is coming from the young composition. In the teen segment, between the ages of 12 and 17, Hispanics already have an 18.2% share with 4.5 million teens, which is projected to grow to 11.4 million by 2050.

Given Nielsen’s projections, particularly in the 18-49 demo, it will be interesting to see how new media options proliferate in order to fulfill the demands of this rapidly growing segment.

Last week Morgan Stanley (MS) published a paper written by a 15 year old intern in their UK office exploring teen media consumption. Morgan Stanley concedes that to not be “claiming representation or statistical accuracy” given the casual nature of the report. It is interesting to compare this paper’s beliefs to “How Teens Use Media,” a recent teen study conducted by Nielsen on a global basis. The two studies have substantial differences in certain areas, three of which I highlighted three in the following chart.

These discrepancies probably stem from the fact that the Morgan Stanley paper is basically inferred from a single perspective while the Nielsen study is worldwide survey. Furthermore it is probable that the UK cultural nuances differentiate the Morgan Stanley paper; it is also possible that it is skewed towards the younger end of teens since the writer is 15.

Still the personal nature of the Morgan Stanley paper gives it a certain appeal; it is filled with anecdotal nuggets, granting personable insight into how and why teens use media.

• “Teenagers visit the cinema more often they are in the lower end of teendom… this is due to pricing; at 15 they have to pay the full adult price, which is often double the child price.”
• “Many teenager use YouTube to watch videos (usually anime which cannot be watched anywhere else)…”

What is truly needed is a more thorough study of media consumption, directly comparing all age demographics from Preteens (10-12) to adults. The Nielsen Three Screen Study comes close to this, but the youngest demographic included is 18-24. It would also be greatly useful to categorize the media consumption not by age, but by birthdate, and to also conduct the study annually in order to judge how generational media consumption evolves.

Last week TVByTheNumbers posted some numbers from the Television Bureau of Advertising demonstrating how far High Definition Television adoption has to go in the market.

While digital television set sales have soared since 2001, HD adoption seems to have been somewhat slower.

The second graph illustrates the following data:

1. HD Display Capable: A home that is equipped with an HD television that is capable of displaying HD content.
2. HD Capable: A home that is equipped with and HD television and HD tuner capable of receiving signals in HD.
3. HD Receivable: A home that is equipped with an HD television and HD tuner and receives at least one HD network or station.
4. Difference: The percentage difference between the penetration of HD displays (1) and the ability to receive HD content (3).

The growth in the HD Display Segment (ownership of HD sets) and in the HD Capable segment (ownership of both HD sets and tuners) has been steady since 2007.

In the TVByTheNumbers post the gap between owning HD sets and receiving HD content is questioned.

Do that many people buy HD sets well in advance of getting HD programming, or are that many people just unaware of whether they are actually receiving HD programming?

I believe that this gap in the HD chain is due to many factors. Some consumers may be buying HD sets in anticipation of HD signals. Other consumers may be buying their sets and using the sets for purposes other than TV watching (HD DVDs, video games, etc.).

In any case since the beginning of 2009 there has been an marked increase in the slope of the HD Receivable segment, slightly closing the HD gap. Again, it is difficult to gauge why this has occurred. dIs it possible that HD signal coverage growth has accelerated during the past six months? Nielsen does quarterly studies of HD signal penetration in its metered markets but I can’t find any updated results for 2009.

This may be a result of more stations going to HD, as a result of the final push towards the digital transition; as of June 12, 2009, all U.S. TV broadcasts went digital. In any case, at the current rate HD signals may finally become more ubiquitous, reaching almost 3/4 of households within a year.

The NHL’s Stanley Cup and NBA Finals just finished up. The Stanley Cup had a strong series which went the full seven games; its ratings 19% above last year’s. The NBA Finals this year were so-so, especially in comparison to last year’s match up between the Lakers and the Celtics. Unsurprisingly the Finals draw 4% less viewers this year.

Over the long term the NBA Finals and the World Series have lost viewers. The Superbowl has had the opposite trend. This year’s Superbowl between the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers had a record 98.7 million viewers. The PGA’s U.S. Open and the Stanley Cup seem to have maintained their total viewers, but I couldn’t get earlier historical data to confirm this.

Taking into account population growth gives a somewhat different story. Since 1968 the U.S. population has grown from 200 to 300 million, and U.S. TV households have doubled  to 114 million. Based on household ratings (percentage of the total TV household population) the Superbowl has just maintained its viewership levels.

It would be interesting to compare unique viewership between the Superbowl and these other sporting events that extend over various days and in certain cases like the Stanley Cup, various networks (this year’s Stanley Cup was broadcast by NBC and Versus). The total reach would probably not reach the Superbowl audience but it would certainly paint a different picture in terms of total audience size.

Last week the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) released the results of a new $3.5 million study sponsored by Nielsen titled “Media Behavior in America” focused on media usage and behavior, or more basically the amount of “consumer exposure” to “any of four categories of screens.”

1. Traditional television (including live TV, DVR playback, DVD/VCR).
2. Computer (including Web use, e-mail, video, etc.).
3. Mobile devices (including Web use, text messaging and video).
4. “All other screens” (including display screens, in-cinema movies and GPS navigation units).

Given the multiplatform focus of this blog, I wanted to quickly cover the results of this study.

Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer at Turner Broadcasting and member of the CRE, remarked that the results are “amazingly consistent across all the ages.” Overall over 67% of media time is spent with a television, close to six hours a day on average with just over five hours dedicated to live TV viewing. At 16 minutes of commercial time per hour this means that an average viewers sees over 80 minutes of commercials and promos each day, demonstrating the medium’s importance to advertising.

Computer and mobile usage was much less frequent, occupying less than a third of the total media activity. According to this study on average viewers saw only 1.2 hours of video online per month. Another recent study, by comScore, gauged that viewers saw five hours of video online per month. I am not sure how to explain this difference between the two studies. The CRE study was sponsored by Nielsen and was overseen by an independent board of advertisers, television executives and other industry experts. Regardless, both studies demonstrate that monthly online video viewing is a fraction of daily television viewing, indicating that television will probably remain the dominant advertising medium for quite some time.

Perhaps most importantly, this study demonstrates that the public is consuming media at a greater rate, perhaps since there are so many more options for them to choose from. From an advertising point of view this is both an opportunity and a challenge; an opportunity since their targets are more accessible than ever; a challenge because campagins will require coordination across different screens along with precise segment targeting.

For the second time in two years, the Solutions Research Group did a survey asking consumers to choose their ‘must keep TV brands if they could keep only a limited number of channels to watch in their households.’ The top 10 results are as follows.

1. ABC
2. CBS
3. NBC
4. Fox
5. ESPN
6. Discovery Channel
7. History
8. Sci Fi Channel (up from No. 14 a year earlier)
9. HBO (down one position from a year earlier)
10. Food Network (first time in Top 10)

I find it surprising to see History and the Sci Fi Chanel to be higher on the list than HBO. This may be a result of the added cost that HBO incurs, even though it is unclear how this factored into the survey. In any case, it is clear that the History and Sci Fi have attained an important position in the market during the past five years- Battlestar Galactica was launched in 2003. Other top risers in the survey were USA and TNT.

I recently took a look at Interbrand’s 2008 Best Global Brands is a ranking of the world’s top 100 brands “on the basis of how much they’re likely to earn in the future,” or in other words the ‘brand value.’

Interestingly enough there are three media brands on this list: Disney, MTV and Thomson Reuters. No other media brands appear, because either a) they didn’t rank or b) they were exempted from consideration since Interbrand requires that “the brand must have at least one-third of revenues outside of its country-of-origin.” I’m going to do some more research and try to see which brands got exempted but in the mean time here is a graph displaying the brand value of Disney, MTV and Thomson Reuters. The last brand has been ranked only since 2008.

What is immediately obvious is that Disney’s brand value is far greater than the others. I would consider the following factors as to why this is the case.

• Time: Disney has simply been in the marketplace for longer than the other companies, and its brand has therefore penetraded various generations of consumers.
• Business interests: Disney has movies, theme parks, TV programming, cruise lines and many other businesses that MTV and Thomson are not involved in. Of course Disney’s brand must be strong to work in so many different businesses, but successful business interests would also reinforce and strengthen the brand.
• Prominence: Lastly I think that Disney’s brand is more prominently used than many other media companies. More on this below.

For a lot media companies the parent brand acts as ‘endorser’ while a shows or movie is the ‘driver’ brand which effectively steers the relationship with the consumer. A good example of this would be a network like NBC and the show ER. Viewers are watching NBC, but they are choosing to watch ER.

In other cases like Disney the parent brand maintains a higher degree of prominence, and is more important in managing the relationship with the consumer. I believe that many parents will take their children to see a Disney movie simply because it’s a Disney movie. I also believe that the MTV brand has a similar prominent role in the relationship with its audience, and that this in part is why the MTV brand is on this top 100 list.

When I first saw this Interbrand list, I though it would be interesting to see a ranked list of all media companies and not just Disney, MTV and Thomson Reuters. However now I think it would be better to see a study comparing the weight of media parent brands to the media property brands they manage.