Attitudes towards the Changing TV Experience

Leuven.
Up next at EuroITV 2009 is Nele Simons, who studies television viewing practices. TV is perceived as a structuringh medium, a social medium, and a lean-back medium, but these are all based on traditional, conventional TV viewing practices. These are all challenged by current technological and social changes impacting on television.

Conventionally, the TV broadcasting structure brings routine structure to the daily life of many people, but timeshifting, spaceshifting, and on-demand access are becoming increasingly common. Broadcasters no longer have control over the time, space, and content of television viewing (also because television is no longer everything that's being viewed on the TV screen).

The fixed broadcast schedule also created a sense of social belonging, of course, as it enabled the creation of audiences discussing programme content the next day; on-demand access to television content undermines this. Personalised programming also shifts TV viewing from a lean-back to a more lean-forward approach (as do quiz shows, voting-based reality TV shows, etc.).

How much has this impacted on current TV viewing practices, though? Nele conducted face-to-face surveys in Belgium to find out. Almost all respondents now interrupted the TV flow to adapt viewing to their personal schedules; younger respondents time-shifted frequently to other days, mostly to the weekend, while older TV users watched delayed, but on the same day. This did not necessarily save time; indeed, they watched more TV than otherwise. Films and dramas were most frequently time-shifted, sports and reality shows most often watched live. There was very limited interest in mobile TV.

Even in spite of timeshifting, there was still a sense of programming as a shared experience; however, this was less the case for international drama series, where viewers departed furthest from set programming times. Users enjoyed being in control, yet still saw TV as a lean-back experience, and showed little interest in interactive television.

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