YouGov: Established Media, UltraViolet to Prevail in 2014

LONDON: In its Media, Technology & Telecoms Outlook for 2014, YouGov has pinpointed four key trends for the year ahead, including predictions that established media will stem the current flow of losses and grow and that UltraViolet could break into the mainstream.

Dan Brilot, media consulting director at YouGov, said: "The narrative of the past few years has been of the inevitable march of newly created digital brands at the expense of non-digital established media. With seven in ten phone owners now having smartphones and half of the U.K. online population having accessed video on demand services in the last 3 months, established media have seen their income challenged in the face of new ways for audiences to consume content. 2014 is the year we anticipate that this will start to change, with established media brands’ market share growing—particularly in some sub-sectors such as television and news."

He added: "By giving consumers what they want (and can’t get elsewhere) across a range of devices, established news brands are poised to stage a fightback."

Shaun Austin, the director of media at YouGov, predicted: "2013 was the year that UltraViolet made inroads into the U.K. market and 2014 could be the year it breaks into the mainstream. Research we conducted in the second half of the year shows that almost a fifth of consumers in the U.K. were aware of the digital rights authentication and cloud-based licensing system that allows people to stream and download content to multiple devices. This is a three per cent increase from the start of the year. However, while a chunk of people have heard about UltraViolet, just 13 percent of people who are aware of it actually know what it does.

"Given the proliferation of smart mobile devices the ability to watch your own TV and movies wherever you want, whenever you want is more important than ever before. To this end, our data show that those who already use UltraViolet see its benefits. Over half of those who have tried it say they are likely to use the service when they next purchase a physical disc and almost three quarters of those who are very familiar with the system are likely to use the service again. The implications are clear: people who use the service like it and want to use it again. To inspire mass take-up of UltraViolet, retailers, digital content providers and the studios need to back the service and explain its benefits. If they follow Tesco and Blinkbox’s lead then there is potential for the service to become a success. However, further marketing and education are key to this."

Other trends cited in the report are that almost half of households in the U.K. will have tablets by the end of 2014, and that businesses are set to prioritize securing their mobile workforce.