Watching TV in real-time is still heavily favored over video on demand (VOD) systems by Koreans. A study has revealed that viewers watch TV an average of 2 hours and 47 minutes per day, whereas the average time for watching programs via VOD was a mere 2 minutes.
The study was released by the KISDI(Korea Information Society Development Institute) and analyzed viewing habits of TV programs. The research took place in 2012 as part of a ‘Media Diary’ survey that recorded the media use of individuals in 15 minute intervals over three days.
According to the report, 84.8% of viewers watched real-time TV and 2.2% of viewers watched programs via VOD. “It (the study) revealed that watching TV in real-time is still the dominant method.” said KISDI assistant researcher Yoon-hwa Kim.
Simply scanning the top searches on Korea’s top portal site Naver will show how relevant real-time television still is in the nation, with most searches somehow related to something that has recently aired. This is despite a large number of people having access to VOD through IPTV, though not all users may be familiar with how to use such features.
Taking a look at the age of those who mainly use VOD, those in their twenties used it the most at 9.5%, but viewing time was the shortest at 1 hour 13 minutes. On the other hand, those in their 50s used VOD the least but watched it for 2 hours 28 minutes, almost double the time of those in their twenties.
“There is a trend of less VOD usage the older the viewer. Though there is less use because of technology barriers, because those in the older age group have more free time it would seem that their average viewing time is longer.” explained Kim.
Main content from this post was translated from an article by Jong-min Lee at ET News, a media partner of VentureSquare.
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