Many Channel Surfers Are Web Surfers

A mouse in one hand, a remote control in the other? According to research there is considerable simultaneous overlap among the mediums.

Data from more than 7,000 consumers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and the UK, gathered and analysed by KNOTs Europe identified convergence, particularly in France, the Netherlands, and the UK, with the most widespread simultaneous TV/Internet usage exhibited among the 25-to-34 year old range.

More than one-third (35 percent) of this group spends in excess of 16 hours per week surfing the Web, and 34 percent spend more than 5 hours per day watching TV.

Consequently, this group is equally divided on the question of which medium they would miss the most – 38 percent name TV, while another 38 percent name the Internet as the “medium I cannot do without.”

Meanwhile, a March 2003 BIGResearch study found similar results:

TV Watching and Web Surfing
	Males	Females
Regularly watch TV while online	32.7%	36.4%
Regularly go online while watching TV	23.8%	29.1%
Regularly watch TV while reading mail	16.8%	22.2%
Source: BIGResearch

The figures jump dramatically to more than 50 percent for each gender when instances of occasional simultaneous usage are included, indicating that a mixture of advertising strategies are most effective for capturing the Internet using audience. The research indicates that 30.8 percent regularly channel surf during TV commercials, compounding the need for multi-channel marketing.

BIGResearch went a step further in determining which consumers are engaging in simultaneous media usage by interviewing 7,006 WalMart customers, 1,784 Target customers, and 2,740 JC Penney customers.

	WalMart	Target	JC Penney
Regularly watch TV while online	35.9%	34.1%	32.3%
Regularly go online while watching TV	27.7%	26.7%	24.8%
Source: BIGResearch