Singapore – The ARRIS 2014 Consumer Entertainment Index, launched in APAC on June 18, reveals consumer demand for personalised entertainment is driving several key trends in global content consumption, with significant implications for tomorrow’s entertainment services.

Broadcast TV remains the staple of in-home entertainment, with a near universal 96% penetration rate in the APAC region and new implications for multi-screen and multi-room viewing. The vast majority of APAC consumers are engaged in binge-TV viewing: 83% now watch multiple TV episodes or even an entire series in a single sitting.

Meanwhile, a growing aversion to traditional TV advertisements is opening the door for multi-screen merchandising. And the biggest challenge of today’s multi-screen world may be finding the space to save everything we want to watch.

ARRIS’s Consumer Entertainment Index is an independent study of global media consumption habits, surveying 10,500 consumers from 19 countries. The study tracks engagement with various components of the entertainment experience—including multi-screen, advertising, and DVR – to offer insight into the trends that are driving the evolution of content consumption.

Key findings from the ARRIS Consumer Entertainment Index:

• APAC consumers turn TV-binging into a habit: 83% admit to “binge-viewing” entertainment; 90% of 16-24 year-olds have binge-watched TV content
• Traditional TV advertising is a turn-off; consumers shift attention to programme-related purchases: 64% of APAC consumers record entertainment to skip the ads. 36% said that ads on their smartphone are intrusive. However, 36% of APAC consumers using secondary devices to do so purchase products featured on the programmes they watch.
• Consumers love entertainment in the living room but are “tuned-in” in the bedroom: Broadcast TV is here to stay, but carries new implications for multi-screen and multi-room viewing. Globally and in the APAC region, the living room remains the most popular room for viewing TV. In the APAC region 54% of tablet owners use their tablet, and 56% of smartphone users use their smartphone in the bedroom to watch entertainment
• In 2014, APAC households argue over not what to watch but what to delete: 71% of DVR owners say they have to delete programmes because they ran out of space, despite 33.2% of recorded content having never been watched

Tim Gropp, Senior Vice President, Sales, Asia Pacific, ARRIS commented: “The rapid growth of mobile devices, increasing reach of high-speed broadband networks, and ease of content access is reshaping the way people engage with entertainment. Consumers now expect entertainment on their terms – control over what they watch, when and where they watch it.

“Our Consumer Entertainment Index found that consumers express these expectations in the ways they engage with entertainment in the home. We have found a healthy appetite for traditional forms of entertainment, like broadcast TV, and this serves as the foundation for new ways of consuming that content – like multi-screen, multi-room, and binge-viewing. Meanwhile, we’re seeing an uptick in conversion on second-screen merchandising. These trends underscore an opportunity for service providers to offer more personalised services and programme-related content that address this shift in engagement,” Gropp continued.

More findings from the study include:

Binging has become a habit

Binge-viewing has gone mainstream and is especially popular with women and younger audiences in the living room.

• 83% admit to ‘binge-viewing’ entertainment in the APAC region.
• 34% of 16-24 year-olds binge-watch once a week (20% globally); 10% of APAC respondents say they binge at least once a day.
• 62% of 25-34 year-olds in the APAC region binge-watch at least 2-3 times a month (37% globally).

Traditional TV advertisements are a turn-off; consumers shift attention to programme-related purchases

The study suggests that traditional TV and mobile advertising is reaching a saturation point, while APAC consumers appear to embrace new forms of personalised and programme-related merchandising.

• 85% of people admitted to wanting to fast-forward ads they watch; 65% of respondents said they want to fast-forward more than half the time they watch TV.
• Consumers are increasingly using more than one device while watching TV.

Ø  Of those who have done so, 26% used a second device to access historical information about the programme; 37% access live information about the programmes they are watching.

36% of APAC consumers using secondary devices have done so to purchase products featured in the programmes they watch.

Ø  25-34 year olds who use a second screen while watching TV, are more likely than any other age group to purchase something based on the TV show they are watching – 30% saying they are likely to have bought a song.

Consumers love entertainment in the living room but are still “tuned-in” in the bedroom

Traditional broadcast TV remains a staple of the home entertainment ecosystem, and the living room continues to be the preferred location for entertainment viewing in the home, but consumers are extending this paradigm onto more devices in more rooms.

Watching TV is often the secondary action to provide background entertainment, as mobile smart devices have become much more of a distraction – often taking consumers away from the content they’re watching on their main screen. This makes traditional TV something that is easy to put down as well as pick up. Internet TV is also on the rise in the living room and remains stable in the bedroom.

• Broadcast TV is here to stay – 88% of APAC respondents watch at least one hour of broadcast TV each week.
• The living room is the most popular room to watch broadcast TV in APAC, preferred by 65% of consumers.

Ø  The second most popular room is the bedroom with 27%.

• Mobile devices like tablets and smartphones are enabling consumers to branch out to other rooms in the home:

Ø  Bedrooms: 54% (tablet) and 56% (smartphone)

Ø  Kitchen:14% (tablet) and 20% (smartphone)

Ø  Dining room: 15% (tablet) and 18% (smartphone)

Ø  Toilet/bathroom: 13% (tablet) and 20% (smartphone)

Ø  Living room: 44% (tablet) and 47% (smartphone)

• Nearly three quarters of those surveyed in the APAC region (72%) are interested in a service that allows them to watch any TV programme from any device in any location.

Households argue not over what to watch, but what to delete

Recording of content is causing frustration in the household. With so much content to watch, and yet a finite amount of time in the day, households argue over what gets consigned to trash.

• 64% of APAC respondents record content each week. However, of that recorded content, nearly a quarter is never actually watched (33.2%).
• Consumers quickly run out of space when it comes to recording TV programmes. 71% have had to delete or move old TV programmes and films to make space for new content. 72% said they would like to use a cloud service to store their entertainment.
• 82% of APAC respondents who had to delete a programme from their DVR before watching it said that having to delete programmes to make space has caused frustration in the home.