TV and movie viewing has taken up a smaller chunk of consumers’ overall weekly entertainment time over the past two years, according to new research from Interpret.
The research company said the shift coincides with an increasing share of weekly time spent on other digital entertainment activities, leading to increased diversity in consumer entertainment behaviors, especially among young consumers.
Interpret’s Holistic Entertainment 2021: The Complete Consumer, based on online surveys of 9,000 US consumers from 2019 to 2021, suggests that the average weekly time spent on entertainment overall has increased by an average of five hours.
During that time, broadcast and cable network viewing fell by approximately one hour per week but hours spent on streaming services offset the decline. That finding dovetails with recent data from Hub Entertainment Research, which found that more than half of all TV viewers say their TV default is an online streaming service like Netflix, a free streaming service with ads like Pluto TV, or a live TV streaming service like YouTube TV.
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According to Interpret, music, gaming and podcasts have claimed a larger share of consumer entertainment. Notably, U.S. consumers are now spending more than two hours more per week on mobile games in 2021 than in 2019.
At the same time, reading books, newspapers and magazines declined in entertainment share and, likely due to the ongoing pandemic, attendance at live events also declined.
“Overall, consumers’ time spent on entertainment is becoming more diverse,” said Brett Sappington, vice president at Interpret, in a statement. “Movies and TV programming still represent the largest share of entertainment time, but other activities are rapidly encroaching. Young consumers in particular see gaming, short form video, and livestreaming as valid, even preferable, alternatives to premium video content. The industry must continue to push the boundaries of entertainment in order to engage with consumers and remain relevant over time.”