Digital set to become most popular form of media in France, Germany
LONDON: Digital is set to become the most-consumed form of media for adults in France and Germany for the first time, with the UK nearing similar levels.
According to research company eMarketer, the soaring use of mobile devices, especially when used simultaneously when watching television, means digital media will overtake TV viewing in France and Germany this year for the first time ever. And in the UK, digital media will be responsible for nearly half (49 percent) of adults’ time consuming major media, while time spent watching traditional TV will drop to less than a third of the total media consumption.
This year, adults in France will spend an average of 10 hours, 15 minutes per day consuming major media — digital, TV, radio and print — while adults in Germany will average 10 hours, 3 minutes; and those in the UK will notch up an average of 9 hours, 25 minutes of media consumption every day.
Increasing non-voice mobile media time is driving much of digital’s rise. For the first time in 2017, mobile-accessed Internet use will overtake desktop and laptop Internet time in France. Users there will spend an average of 12 minutes more per day online via mobile devices than on desktops and laptops. In Germany, that switch has already occurred; but overall non-voice mobile time is expected to expand its lead over the desktop and laptop-based digital-media consumption to 46 minutes per day in 2017.
In the UK, adults will spend a total of 2 hours, 32 minutes per day conducting non-voice mobile activities, an increase of 11 minutes against last year, and 27 minutes more than the time spent with desktops and laptops.
By eMarketer’s methodology, each minute of specific media consumption counts toward the daily total regardless of whether it occurs simultaneously with the use of other media. Because of this, an hour spent watching TV, while concurrently using a smartphone, counts as an hour of use for each medium, and as two hours of overall media time.