If you thought you’re the only screen addict in the house – think again. A new study shows that while we were secretly watching silly clips on Facebook, our children were binge-watching on multiple devices in the next room – 6 hours per day on average. Twitter launched Periscope, a livestreaming app which will compete with Vine and Meerkat on the hearts and the fingers of the fast-living, adrenaline junkies in the audience. And according to a new Adobe research – the TV Everywhere revolution is only getting started. Here is the latest industry news of the week.
TV Everywhere is Really Everywhere! (Lightreading; Rapid TV News)
We knew it all along but this week we’ve received another confirmation for the market’s trust in TV Everywhere. A new study released by Adobe suggests that the percentage of pay-TV subscribers viewing multiscreen video content almost tripled in the last two years. According to the study, in the first quarter of 2013 only 4.4 percent of the viewers were watching their videos the TV Everywhere way, while in the fourth quarter of 2014 - 12.5 percent were consuming their video on multiple devices. In addition, the research found that more than 13 million viewers logged in to watch TVE programming at least once every quarter last year, up from 6 million TVE viewers the previous year.
Based on these findings, Adobe predicts that TV Everywhere active viewership will reach 17.5% by the end of 2015 – even without major sporting events. “In 2015 and beyond, we anticipate that viewers will continue logging in to access more episodic TV programming and film content,” said Adobe’s director of product marketing, Campbell Foster.
Live Is in the Air (Re/code; Rapid TV News; Adweek)
In a step that brings video and social networks closer, Twitter launched its livestreaming video app Periscope this week. Periscope streams live audio and video from a user’s smartphone while others can watch and comment within the app, and the link can be shared on Twitter. The launch comes only a month after another livestreaming app, Meerkat, was introduced at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference in Texas. Meerkat relies on Twitter as it uses the social network’s login. The app had used Tweeter’s social graph to help users find people to follow – until twitter announced it is reducing Meerkat’s access to the graph. Offering common and difference features (and a very similar design), the two apps are competing for the same adrenaline-loving, exhibitionistic audience. And the appetite for such sharable, immediate live features can be judged by Meetkat’s 400,000 users who joined the new platform in less than two months.
Elsewhere in the search for younger audience - and their craving for fast moving videos- HBO announced this week it is teaming up with Vice, the New-York based media company which challenges the limits of traditional journalism and video production. HBO said it will dramatically increase its current events coverage through adding a daily newscast produced by Vice.In addition, a VICE-branded channel will provide access to VICE content for all HBO subscribers through HBO’s streaming service. In the past year alone, Vice Media has launched a full-fledged news division, and announced plans for a 24-hour news network
It’s Official: Kids are Glued to the Screen(s) (Advanced Television)
Streaming apps might be targeted for teenagers or older viewers, but the video addiction starts much earlier in life, a new research shows. According to Childwise, children aged 5-16 spend six and a half hours on an average day in front of a screen – be it TV, game consoles, computers or mobile devices. The Connected Kids report indicates that the time spent in front of a screen has doubled in the last twenty years, and that Children are now multi-screening using more than one device simultaneously. Like their older, millennial siblings, children watch TV through catch up services, or on social platforms such as YouTube, the study suggests.
Share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment and you can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Photo credit: Wayan Vota / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
