New study shows the ratio of viewer focus when in front of multiple screens

Be honest, do you ever watch television and work on a laptop, use your smartphone, or are on your tablet at the same time? Truthfully, you are not alone. eMarketer reported on a November 2013 survey conducted by TiVo. Good news for the television industry, even though there is competition with viewers’ eyes when they are multi-screening, viewers tend to focus the most on TV.

Results from the study: Devices operated simultaneously while watching television according to US TV viewers.

Smartphone:

-         24% “almost always” use the smartphone while watching TV

-         61% have “ever” used the smartphone while watching TV

Tablet:

-         19% “almost always”

-         37% “ever”

Laptop/netbook:

-         11% “almost always”

-         49% “ever”

Desktop computer:

-         6% “almost always”

-         18% “ever”

Portable game system:

-         1% “almost always”

-         6% “ever”

The study also showed that approximately 27% of surveyors used a second device to “search the internet for information” while watching television. The next highest ranking reason was to “use social media sites to read what people are saying” at 7%. Clearly, looking for information was the biggest reason.

Hispanics spend less time on PCs and more time on mobile phones

A lot of advertisers have a very broad audience with secondary niche groups. It can be helpful for advertisers to keep track on how these communities of people grow and adapt in media consumption habits. For those advertisers who aggressively go after the Hispanic community, did you know that collectively Hispanics overindex for smartphone usage?

eMarketer recently reported Hispanic media consumption results from Experian Marketing Services. In general, the Hispanic and non-Hispanic spend within an hour the same amount of time with radio, magazines, and newspapers. TV was the dominant medium for both groups with Hispanics watching about 27 hours within the week and non-Hispanics watching approximately 28 hours and 11 minutes. These results came from a summer 2013 survey.

Where the research saw a difference was with time spent on PCs. Non-Hispanics spent approximately 11 hours and 50 minutes per week on a PC at work and 9 hours and 5 minutes on a PC at home. Hispanics spent considerably less time at work with 9 hours and 1 minute per week and at home with 6 hours and 26 minutes. A theory is that because the mobile usage is more for Hispanics at 8 hours and 41 minutes per week than non-Hispanics at 7 hours and 47 minutes, the Hispanic community is using mobile phones for internet access and other media.