LOS ANGELES — A new report from researcher NPD In-Stat predicts that 100 million homes in North America and Western Europe will own television sets that blend traditional programs with Internet content by 2016. These new hybrid devices, capable of displaying interactive content related to TV shows, are a bid to hold the viewer’s attention in a device-cluttered world.
“The TV people figured out nobody’s just watching TV anymore,” said Gerry Kaufhold, NPD In-Stat’s digital entertainment research director. “They’re watching TV with a tablet or a smart phone or a laptop in their hands. They’ve completely lost control.”
More than 60 percent of viewers check their e-mail or surf the Web while watching TV, according to Nielsen’s 2011 consumer usage report.Programmers realize they need to do something to draw the viewer’s eyes back to the TV - even as they develop apps to deliver content related to the show that’s airing.
“The level of engagement with the TV show goes down unless you’ve got something on the hand-held device that ties them back to the TV show, somehow,” Kaufhold said.
“Two things are starting to percolate in the television industry,” Kaufhold said. “First is the awareness that it’s not just about the big screen anymore. You’ve got to get something to these second screens. Second is how can we control as much of the screen real estate as possible.”
In the U.S., only about 12 million U.S. households have Web-capable TVs connected to the Internet, although NPD In-Stat estimates about 25 million U.S. TV households own sets with the built-in network capability.
Business, Pages 20 on 03/26/2012