Live TV Still No.1 for Smart TV Owners

As we continue our series on smart home entertainment, today we explore the TV viewing behaviors of Smart TV Owners.

More than 1 in 3 internet users now have a smart TV, and as we saw yesterday, there’s potential for this market to grow further in the coming years. These TVs allow consumers to access popular services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video via their TV sets, with YouTube’s OTT TV service also recently made available on Apple TV and Samsung smart TVs.

As this accessibility grows, and as services like Netflix expand their exclusive content libraries, engagement with online TV services on smart TV is growing hand-in-hand. Smart TV Owners are already more engaged with online TV than average: they spend about 15 minutes longer watching online TV each day, and are 25% more likely to be watching subscription services like Netflix on their TV sets.

All this said, broadcast TV still plays the central role in Smart TV Owners’ media consumption preferences. They’re still considerably more likely to be watching live TV on their TV sets and just 2% are watching no live TV at all. Therefore we know that it’s not that digital consumers choose one form of TV over another.

The vast majority choose to watch a combination of both, which is why online TV is not the “death of broadcast”. For now at least, online and broadcast tend to complement each other, rather than act as substitutes.

Smart TV Owners are defined as internet users aged 16-64 who personally own a smart TV.