NPD and TDG reports look at now and future of video consumption

A pair of research reports from NPD and TDG have provided a look at both sides of a rapidly changing consumer video viewing experience.

NPD's report focused on physical media, saying Blu-ray disks and DVDs accounted for 61 percent of home viewing spending on movies in 2012. Even conceding that this number is 3 percent lower than 2011, the Long Island-based researchers maintained this was because of "lower average prices paid for Blu-ray discs."

On the other side of the video viewing coin, The Diffusion Group (TDG) suggested the "breakout sales success" of tablets was the reason why "significant shift in American media consumption is under way." According to TDG, that shift will result in 58 billion hours of TV and video being watched on tablets in 2017--"equal to 10 percent of all current TV, video and OTT consumption."

However, "[T]here is a significant base of video customers in the U.S. who continue to be comfortable with physical formats and a large majority haven't made the complete transition from disks to digital video," said Russ Crupnick, NPD's senior vice president of industry analysis, in an NPD press release. "For the time being, at least, consumers still like to own and rent movies and TV shows on DVD and Blu-ray, even in a world of where connected devices and digital rental, streaming and ownership options are becoming more accepted and commonplace."

Much more accepted and commonplace, claims TDG Senior Analyst Bill Niemeyer, who predicted "65 percent of U.S. households will own tablets at the end of 2017 and the average number of tablets per household will more than double from current levels. This will create major new opportunities and challenges for content providers, TV networks, multichannel operators and advertisers" who "need to be actively exercising their tablets strategies now, not later."

For more:
- NPD Group issued this press release
- The Diffusion Group issued this press release

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