Magazine: The dawning of a new era in television watching

According to the eNET-Telekom ‘Report on online economy’ conducted in April 2014, 79 percent of regular internet using adults also do something else while watching TV. 27 percent of these people browse the internet on a laptop and 24 percent do the same on a PC. Ironing, cooking or tidying the flat were also frequently named as activities done while watching telly (especially by women). Multiscreen viewing is a relatively new trend: parallel to watching TV consumers also view content on their PCs, tablets or smartphones. eNET’s study revealed that every fifth internet user above the age of 18 owns a tablet and from these 17 percent use it to watch television programmes live; 23 percent watch earlier programmes on their tablets and 71 percent view videos. People watch videos a little less often on their smartphones, probably because of the smaller screen. YouTube is the most popular site for this, mentioned by 97 percent of consumers. In Hungary only 2 percent don’t own a telly and in 40 percent of households there are two sets. Only 20 percent own smart TVs but their number will surely grow as every fourth TV owner plans to buy a smart TV in the near future. Currently 36 percent of smart TV owners use their sets to browse the internet. The survey also revealed that 64 percent of participants don’t have access to video-on-demand (VoD) service but every fifth subscriber already do. 55 percent of the latter group use it but one third of them do so only once a month.