Ofcom: le comunicazioni convergenti nel 2007

Cinquanta ore alla settimana. Sette al giorno. Hmmmmm. Questa, secondo il regolatore britannico Ofcom, la media di tempo che il consumatore mediatico del Regno Unito trascorre utilizzando il telefono, Internet, la Tv e la radio. Come dire che il nostro organismo ha bisogno di sette ore di sonno e sette di multimedialità. Questa e tantissime altre le informazioni che potrete trovare nella edizione 2007 dell'atteso Report sulle Comunicazioni che Ofcom pubblica da quattro anni, nel mese di agosto. Lo potete prelevare da questo indirizzo Web (attenti, sono tre installments da circa 1,5 MB ciascuno). Quello che segue è un dettagliato riassunto pubblicato oggi da All Media Scotland
Per me, uno dei dati più interessanti è quello sulla penetrazione delle radio DAB in UK. La venidta ha superato i 5 milioni di pezzi quest'anno: oggi, il 17% delle famiglie inglesi possiede una apparecchio DAB. Insoma, un discreto mercato questa radio digitale. Ofcom lo definisce nella fase di "early majority", ma i lettori MP3 sono molto, molto più diffusi. Contemporaneamente, la "radio digitale" viene consumata (33% dei consumatori, un dato superiore a quello individuato da RAJAR nei giorni scorsi) anche attraverso i set top box della DTV, Internet, telefonini (chissà se ci si riferisce alla sezione FM dei telefonini).

TV, Radio, Internet and Phone Taking up Fifty Hours a Week
23/08/2007

As ‘consumers’, we each apparently spend an average 50 hours on the phone, surfing the internet, watching television or listening to the radio - according to figures published today by broadcasting regulators, Ofcom.
Says Ofcom, in its annual Communications Market Report, average daily internet use last year (36 minutes) was up 158 per cent on five years ago, and time spent on the mobile phone (almost four minutes per day) was up 58 per cent. Time spent watching TV was down four per cent, at three hours and 36 minutes, listening to radio was down two per cent at two hours and 50 minutes and time spent on a fixed line phone was down eight per cent at seven minutes.
However, while consumers are getting more out of their communications services, the amount they are spending on them continues to fall. Last year, the average household spend on communications services was £92.65 per month, down from £94.03 the previous year.
Among the highlights, over 75 per cent of 11 year-olds now have their own television, games console and mobile phone. And some 15 per cent of 13-to-15 year-olds and seven per cent of 10 year-olds also have their own webcam.
Also, fewer children are playing console and computer games (61 per cent regularly did so two years ago, down to 53 per cent now), watching videos and DVDs (59 per cent did so regularly two years ago, down to 38 per cent now) and listening to radio (40 per cent listened regularly two years ago, down to 20 per cent now). Instead, they are using their mobile phones more often (50 per cent regularly did so two years ago, compared with 53 per cent now), surfing the internet (47 per cent regularly two years ago, compared to 52 per cent now) and using MP3 players (20 per cent regularly two years ago, compared to 28 per cent now).
Meanwhile, older people are also consuming more media. The over-55s was the only age group to increase its average radio listening between 2002 and 2007 (up 5.5 per cent). And older people are not just increasing their use of traditional media. Some 16 per cent of over-65s use the web. These ‘silver surfers’ spend an average of 42 hours online every month, more than any other age group. Indeed, far from being just a young person's technology, one quarter of all UK internet users are over 50 and the over-50s account for 30 per cent of total time spent online.
And among 25-34 year-olds, women spend more time using the internet than men. In this age group, 2.18 million young women users account for 55 per cent of total time spent online. By comparison, just 1.83 million 25-34 year-old men in the UK use the internet.
Digital television - in 80.5 per cent per cent of UK homes by April this year - is changing what, when and how we watch. One of the new services being used by viewers in the 11.5 million subscription television households is high-definition (HD) television. The report finds that, in the 450,000 homes that have it, 33 per cent of viewing time is spent watching in HD and 43 per cent of those surveyed said that they watch more television - especially premium content such as films and sport - as a result of having HD.
And by April this year, 15 per cent of respondents said they had a digital video recorder (DVR), almost double the number at the end of last year. DVRs allow users to record whole television series and to pause and rewind live programmes.
Radio listeners have a much wider choice of stations and ways of listening due to the growth of digital radio. Last year, the total number of DAB digital radio sets sold broke through the five million mark and 17.2 per cent of UK homes now have a DAB digital radio. DAB sets accounted for 18.6 per cent of all radio sales last year (1.8 million sets) compared to 12.9 per cent the year before (1.5 million sets).
DAB is not the only way that consumers listen to digital radio. The report finds that 33 per cent of consumers have listened to the radio via digital television (15 per cent do so at least weekly), 21-22 per cent listen online (12 per cent at least weekly) and 10-12 per cent listen via their mobile phone (six per cent at least weekly).
On the advertising front, UK television advertising revenue last year fell by 2.2 per cent on the previous year to £3.5 billion, the first fall since five years ago. The decline in advertising revenues coincides with greater availability and use of television-style content online and the growth of digital video recorders (DVRs) that allow users to skip adverts, putting even greater pressure on advertising revenues. The report found that up to 78 per cent of DVR owners regularly used them to skip through adverts.
Declining advertising revenue is, however, increasingly being supplemented by alternative sources of income. Last year, subscription revenues increased to £4 billion (approximately £350 per subscription), up from £3.3 billion the year before. Similarly, revenues from interactive services, such as quiz television channels and participative voting in programmes, increased by 18.3 per cent during last year to £123 million, although this new source of income may be affected in the future as broadcasters review their approach to interactive TV.
While television advertising overall is declining, revenues for digital-only free-to-air channels, such as ITV2, More4 and Five Life, is rising and for the first time broke though the £1 billion mark last year, a 21 per cent increase over the previous year. Revenue for the three commercial terrestrial channels - ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 - stood at £2.4 billion last year, 9.6 per cent lower than the year before.
As television advertising revenue declines, online advertising spending continues to surge, up 47 per cent during last year and just breaking the £2 billion mark. Internet advertising
spend is now equivalent to almost half (44 per cent) that spent on all TV advertising, to 83 per cent of advertising spend on ITV1, Channel 4 and Five and to one quarter (24.2 per cent) of all press advertising. By April this year, 53 per cent of UK households had a broadband connection.
While the total number of radio stations in the UK has increased through the expansion of DAB (in June this year, there were 389 radio stations in the UK, 169 of which were available on DAB), the report shows that the total number of radio listening hours declined to an average of 19.8 hours per week per listener last year. This fell further to 19.4 hours between January and March this year. This decline has been felt most in the commercial local radio sector. Between April two years ago and April last year, average listening to local commercial radio fell by 4.1 per cent.
As listening has declined, so has commercial radio advertising revenue. Between 2001 and 2006, radio's share of total advertising revenue in the UK fell by 14.3 per cent and last year stood at £480 million. Total revenue for local commercial stations fell by 9.5 per cent from £169m two years ago to £153 million last year.
By contrast, the report finds that people are increasingly tuning-in to BBC radio. In the first three months of this year, four out of the five most listened-to stations were all BBC. The top five were: BBC Radio 2, Radio 1, Radio 4, Classic FM and Five Live.
The report also estimates that the BBC's expenditure on radio, at £637 million last year, is at its highest level in five years. This compares to £512 million for the commercial radio sector, at its lowest level since five years ago.