Australian's spend more time online than watching TV

A few weeks back Nielsen Netratings released their latest research into Australian media consumption. And for the first year ever they found that the amount of time Australians are spending online has surpassed the amount of time spent watching television.

The study found that Australians were spending around 13.7 hours per week online, while average television viewing was around 13.3 hours per week.

The rise in cross media consumption was noted with more than half (58%) of Australians Internet users saying they have watched TV while online and 48 percent have used the Internet while listening to the radio.

The idea of media saturation also prevailed, because for the first time increases in the amount of time spent online, was not reported with an increase in the amount of time spent watching TV - that means we're engaged in about as much media as we can handle. Where we go from here is spending our time fragmented across a range of media (perhaps concurrently), not necessarily consuming more media.

Tony Marlow, Associate Research Director, Asia Pacific, NielsenOnline reports notes that, at saturation, it becomes difficult for consumers to take on any extra media activity without sacrificing something else – posing new challenges for marketing professionals who will need to very closely monitor the performance of their advertising investments across the range of media, making sure they are getting the best return for their spend.

He goes on to say that "On average, Australians are spending 84.4 hours per week across a range of media and leisure activities. This is a significant portion of our spare time considering that the average Australian is only awake for around 112 hours per week."

Australian Internet participation has also reached maturity with only a one percent increase of uptake in the past 12 months to 80 percent. This is well above the global Internet participation rate of just 20 percent.

The majority of Australian Internet users access the Internet from home (92%), while only around one third (34%) said they accessed the Internet from work. The most popular online activities undertaken regularly were email (98%), banking (72%) and accessing news, sport and weather updates (72%).

Growth areas in online activities in the year ahead are expected to be accommodation bookings and instant messaging, both of which are predicted to growth by around 20 percent. (See chart 2).

The report also found that broadband uptake in Australia is now reaching maturity, with broadband connections now found in 84 percent of Australian Internet users’ homes (up 10 points in 12 months and up 30 points in two years). Based on expected uptake, Nielsen Online predicts penetration of this technology should grow to 90 percent by the end of 2008.

For the full media release, click here (warning: will open a pdf).

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