A watershed moment, indicating the internet is now swallowing up other media – 82 percent of Europeans aged 16 to 24 now use the internet between five and seven days a week whilst only 77 watch TV that regularly (down five percent on 2006), says the fifth annual Mediascope study, out today from the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) (via release). It’s the first time the net has overtaken TV for days used. If the days-per-week metric looks shaky, note that age bracket is also spending 10 percent more time online than watching TV – 48 percent say they watch less TV because of the net.
And it’s not just a youth phenomenon – the proportion of all European net users going online between five and seven days a week has risen from 61 percent in 2004 to 75 percent this year while that for TV has remained static at 86 percent. We now spend 11.9 hours a week online.
– Transference: 62 percent of users use other media less thanks to the internet – 40 percent watch less TV, 22 percent listening to less radio, 28 percent reading newspapers less often. But 65 percent of users go to news sites at least once a month.
– Video: The number of people watching online TV, movie or video clips at least once a month has grown 150 percent since last year (superceding last month’s 91 percent figure for the UK from Nielsen Online) thanks to to broadband adoption, which now accounts for 81 percent of connections
– Social media: 42 percent of all internet users use social networks at least once a month. It’s now the third most popular use behind search and email. And the number of people contributing to ratings and reviews sites has grown 42 percent in the year – some 26 percent of users now do so.
Says EIAA: “The internet is rapidly becoming a hub for all media with internet users increasingly consuming media such as magazines, newspapers, radio and TV digitally. As a result of more traditional media being consumed online we expect this media consumption gap to continue widening.” The study involved a random phone poll of 7,008 around Europe.