Audiences More Wired
Dec 28, 2007 (Originally reported in The Hollywood Reporter)
Link to executive summary

NEW YORK -- About 38% of consumers are watching TV shows online, 36% use their cell phones as entertainment devices and 45% are creating online content like Web sites, music, videos and blogs for others, according to a new-media survey from Deloitte & Touche.

The findings of the online survey of 2,081 U.S. consumers, conducted Oct. 25-31, were provided to The Hollywood Reporter before their official release next month.

The "State of the Media Democracy" notes that in Deloitte's first edition of the survey just eight months earlier, 24% of consumers used their cell phones as entertainment devices. The current figure soars to 62% among millennials (consumers 13-to-24-years-old) compared with 46% in the previous study conducted Feb. 23-March 6, 2007. And among Generation X consumers (25-to-41-year-olds), the number grew from 47% to 29% in the earlier survey.

About 20% of consumers said they are viewing video content on their cell phones daily or almost daily.

The percentage of consumers watching TV online jumped from the 23% figure reported in the previous study. Roughly 54% of those surveyed said they are making their own entertainment content through editing photos, videos or music, 45% said they are producing that content for others to see and 32% said they consider themselves to be "broadcasters" of their own media.

Sixty-nine% of those surveyed said they are watching or listening to consumer-generated content.

"I think for advertisers one of the conclusions is you don't make decisions to advertise either on television or the Internet when you want to hit all the demographics, but rather you need to have a multiplatform strategy," said Ken August, vice chairman and national sector leader for Deloitte & Touche's media and entertainment practice, which commissioned the study. "It shouldn't be an either or proposition."

Among the study's other findings:

 
-- Fifty-four% of consumers said they socialize via social networking sites, chat rooms or message boards, and 45% said they maintain a profile on a social networking site.

-- Eight-five% of consumers still find TV advertising to have the most impact on their buying habits, but online ads are second best, with 65% of consumers saying they have the most impact, beating out magazines at 63%.

-- On the Internet, search engine result ads are the most effective with 78% of the vote, followed by interactive ads (62%), banner ads (60%), pre-roll ads (31%), post-roll ads (19%) and embedded ads (17%).

-- Sixty-seven% of consumers said they would willingly be exposed to more online ads if it meant they could receive free content they found valuable, and 65% said they found any type of Internet ad to be more intrusive than ads in newspapers and magazines.

-- Thirty-seven% of consumers said they would rather pay for online content than be exposed to advertisements.

-- Fifty-nine% of consumers said they pay greater attention to magazine ads than any type of Internet advertising, and 55% said they pay greater attention to newspaper ads.