3/4 of Adults Have Watched Web TV

June 15, 2011

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More than three-quarters of American adults (77%) have watched a TV show on the Internet rather than on a traditional television, according to a May 2011 AdWeek/Harris Poll. That figure includes 51% of adults who have a watched a show online they never saw on traditional TV.

Young Most Likely to Watch Web TV

Unsurprisingly, younger adults have much higher rates of watching online TV than older adults. Almost nine in 10 (88%) 18-to-34-year-olds have watched a TV show online, as have 84% of 35-to-44-year-olds. In contrast, only 64% of adults 55 and older have watched an online TV show.
Interestingly, there is essentially no difference between the online TV viewing rates of men (76%) and women (77%).

Education Boosts Online TV Viewing

More educated adults watch online TV at higher rates. Eighty-three percent of those with a college degree or more have watched an online TV show, similar to the 81% of those with some college but about 19% more than the 70% of adults with a high school diploma or less who have.

More than Half of Cable Viewers Have Interest in Giving It Up

Eighty-seven percent of US adults have cable TV, with no major variations by age or gender. Of those adults, 56% have some interest in giving cable TV up. Men (60%) are far more likely than women (52%) to have some interest, and adults 55 and older (45%) have a much lower interest level than any other age group.

Free Online Programming Biggest Draw for Giving Up Cable

The biggest draw for giving up cable by far is free access to all your programs online, which would create interest in 44% of adults. Another 25% of adults would have interest in giving up cable TV if they could get all the programs they watch online at the same time they air on TV.

CEA: TV Remains Dominant Video Device

TV remains the most popular device for viewing video content, according to a market research brief based on a December 2010 survey from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). CEA research finds nine in ten (93%) US households view content on a TV, followed by computers (49%), car video entertainment (13%), cell phones/smartphones (13%) and MP3 players (11%).
About the Data: This Adweek/Harris Poll was conducted online within the US between May 24 and 26, 2011 among 2,309 adults (aged 18 and older). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Where appropriate, this data were also weighted to reflect the composition of the adult online population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.