“Place-Shifting” Dubbed Newest Viewing Trend

STOCKHOLM: A new report from Ericsson ConsumerLab finds that people are increasingly watching one piece of content across several locations and times, calling the latest trend “place-shifted viewing.”

In its fourth annual survey looking at consumer viewing trends, Ericsson ConsumerLabs reports that 72 percent of respondents say they use mobile devices to watch video at least once a week, and 42 percent of them do so outside the home; 75 percent multitask by using mobile devices while watching TV. More than 40 percent of respondents aged 65 to 69 watched streamed on-demand or time-shifted video more than once a week.

Anders Erlandsson, senior researcher at Ericsson ConsumerLab, said: "When the TV industry began talking about mobile TV, everyone assumed it was going to consist mainly of professionally-made shorter video clips. Now, we see a really interesting twist on that story. People are indeed watching shorter video sessions, but they create the video clips themselves by pausing and resuming full-length TV shows and movies whenever it suits them.

"We also noticed that there is a continuing re-definition of television and video among consumers. Given that 82 percent of people use YouTube or similar services at least monthly, we had to wonder whether watching a recipe online in the kitchen counts as ‘watching TV’ or just ‘getting instructions.’"

The research was done in Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the U.K. and the U.S.