THE MAJORITY OF people watch television on their TV sets at home, according to research undertaken cited by Ipsos MRBI.

Speaking at the launch of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s (BAI) public consultation on its strategy for the next three years, Ipsos MRBI managing director Damian Loscher stated that 85.4 per cent of people watch TV programmes on their own televisions, while just 4.6 per cent of people watch on their laptop at home.

Audience viewing habits

The research on the viewing habits of Irish people also found that 1.5 per cent of us watch TV in someone else’s home with 0.6 per cent of people watching TV content on their mobile phones at home.

Just 0.5 per cent of people watch TV on their tablet devices at home.

The information is sourced from the Television Audience Measurement Ireland (TAM) viewing habits research from 2012.

Technology advances

Speaking at the event, the BAI Chairperson Bob Collins stated that while in recent years there has been some big changes in the world of technology, this research shows that it has had little impact on how the Irish audience consumes audio and visual content.

Loscher added that the leaps in technology and social media has “led people to believe that we are all consuming TV content on all these different devices, when the truth is far from that”.

The research also finds that there is a generational divide, showing that 12-17 year olds consume 79 per cent of their audio visual content on TV and that 92 per cent is consumed at home. While the over 55 age group, 96 per cent watch audio visual content on their TV, with 97 per cent watching at home.

Traditional

Loscher said that this shows that younger people are adopting new technologies, but that “we are still very traditional in our consumption of audio visual content”.

Speaking about the introduction of the broadcasting charge today the Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte said there was an increase in people consuming television content on tablets and smartphones, stating that the new charge was to account for the increase.

The BAI’s draft strategy is now available to view online on the BAI Future website. Submissions from the public are welcome and encouraged.

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