TORONTO – Anglophone Canadians are now spending almost a third of their time online watching video, according to a report by the Media Technology Monitor.
In a survey with 4,009 English-speaking Canadians conducted between Oct. 7 and Dec. 1 of last year about 75 per cent of the respondents said they watched some online video monthly.
Two-thirds of them said they regularly watched videos on YouTube, 42 per cent streamed TV content, 34 per cent sat down for full movies, 29 per cent used Netflix, and 26 per cent said they watched news and sports videos.
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While mobile streaming is growing, most were still using a computer to watch online video.
About 83 per cent of those polled said they use a laptop or desktop computer to access online video, while about one in three sometimes use a smartphone and one in four stream with a tablet or Internet-connected TV.
MTM noted that in particular, watching TV shows on non-computer devices grew significantly between 2012 and 2013.
Among the respondents who said they regularly watched TV content online, 29 per cent said they used a tablet to stream, which was up 81 per cent from 2012. About 29 per cent said they used a phone to watch TV content, up 61 per cent in a year. And more than one in three said they used an Internet-connected TV to stream shows, up 54 per cent from 2012.
But the growing popularity of streaming video still hasn’t caused TV customers to cancel traditional service in droves, MTM reports.
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About 85 per cent of those polled said they still pay for a TV subscription, which was down just one percentage point from 2012 and three from 2011.
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About 16 per cent of the TV subscribers did say they were either “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to eventually quit paying for TV, while 52 per cent said they were “not at all likely” to do so.
The consumers most likely to consider becoming a cord cutter — the industry nickname for people who cancel their TV subscription — include those who use a TV to display Internet content, own an Apple TV set-top box, or subscribe to Netflix.
They were most likely to cite the cost of their TV bill as a motivation to cut the cord (47 per cent), rather than a disinterest in watching TV (seven per cent).
The results of the telephone survey, conducted for MTM by Forum Research, are considered accurate within 1.5 percentage points 19 times out of 20.
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