OTTAWA – They’re younger, they’re educated, they don’t care much about sports – and they’re not subscribing to a TV service provider. So says a new report on Canadian’s TV consumption habits from Media Technology Monitor.
Almost 10% of Anglophone Canadians, some spurred on by the August 2011 transition from analog to digital over-the-air television, and 4% of Francophones have “tuned out” says MTM, meaning they just aren’t watching TV much anymore. Of course, they have turned to the Internet. “Tuned out Canadians watch less than half as much TV (on all platforms) as TV subscribers and 50% less than off-air TV viewers,” reads the report. MTM says it measures Canadians’ media technology adoption and use at two points in time. In the Fall, telephone interviews are conducted with 8,000 Canadians (4,000 Anglophones and 4,000 Francophones). To monitor changes in the media landscape over the year, a telephone survey with an independent sample of 4,000 Canadians (2,000 Anglophones and 2,000 Francophones) is conducted in the Spring.
"The results reported here are based on the Fall 2012 survey of 4,001 Anglophones (including 245 cell-phone only) residing in all regions of Canada. The response rate for the Anglophone landline sample is 31%," reads the report.
There has long been a small chunk of the Canadian populace who resisted all forms of subscription television, preferring perhaps off-air television and DVDs. However, when the federal government mandated that analog off-air TV transmission end in August 2011, those who were cut off caused an appreciable rise in the rolls of the tuned-out (see chart below).
The ranks of the tuned-out report they are watching just 7.7 hours of TV per week (on all platforms), split between normal television (watched out of home), and viewing on the Internet (where they spend over 20 hours a week). Half of those who’ve tuned out are between the ages of 18-34, half have a university education and if they have a cell phone as their only phone, they are often not TV subscribers. A quarter of cell only homes have tuned out, says the report.
So why are all these folks choosing to tune out? It seems they just don’t like sport and entertainment, reads the report, and so have no need for the likes of TSN, Sportsnet or BNN and are happy to click and surf, rather than couch-surf.
For more, or to purchase the report, go to www.mtm-otm.ca
