Study: Off-TV Content Viewing Jumps More Than 200 Percent Among Older Viewers

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Sep 9, 2013) - Watching TV shows on a screen other than a TV screen has risen dramatically in just one year, according to this year's 360 Cross-Platform Emotional Attachment™ study from NewMediaMetrics, a brand-strategy and content-alignment firm.

In its sixth annual report, which provides deep insights about media engagement and consumer attachment to media platforms, the most dramatic increase in multi-screen viewing, more than 200 percent, is now happening among baby boomers -- those born between 1946 and 1964.

"Part of the reason is clearly market penetration of tablets and the increased sophistication of mobile phones," said NewMediaMetrics President and Co-Founder, Denise Larson. "But another part is the speed of consumer adoption of these devices, especially among the so-called 'older' crowd, which is becoming at least as tech savvy as millennials."

The promise of instant gratification is another possible factor for the jump, according to CEO Gary Reisman. "It's a new wrinkle on FOMO [fear of missing out]. People want to be current on all the hot shows so they can contribute to the conversations at work and online. Being able to do that quickly and not necessarily by being 'chained' to a TV set is attractive."

Last year's NewMediaMetrics 360 Cross-Platform study revealed increased emotional attachment among all demographics for all media platforms.

 "This year there's a spike in TV content consumption across non-TV screens, which points to how attached users are to specific content," said Ms. Larson. "And that's an indicator to marketers that they must buy audiences, not ratings."

NMM's 360 Cross-Platform Study aligns the high-value customers of more than 380 consumer brands to the media and content they most intently consume or "pull" to them and view. The ROI for marketers is in quantifying and leveraging this contextual alignment.

This year's study also categorized audiences according to media habits, e.g., "time shifters," "cord cutters," and "social TV viewers," and according to interests including, "foodie," "movie enthusiast," "dieter" and "fashionista."

Other findings from the 2013 360 Cross-Platform report are as follows:

• Nearly 45 percent of "time-shifters" (those who watch their favorite shows not as they're broadcast) are highly attached to Verizon
• 50 percent of "cord cutters" are highly attached to BMW
• 37 percent of consumers who are highly attached to Snapple, also post social media messages about that brand (perhaps making Snapple's association with America's Got Talent even more valuable to the brand)

Methodology
NewMediaMetrics collected information from a sample of 4,250 respondents about 60 TV networks and 150 websites. It developed the 360 Cross-Platform Index in 2008 assigning measurements and now has five years worth of trends about consumer attachment to media properties and brands.

About NewMediaMetrics
NewMediaMetrics is a marketing-optimization company that owns a patent-protected approach to measure Emotional Attachment (EA™) and Leverage Emotional Attachment to Profit (the LEAP™ Platform). NMM works with brand marketers to quantify the value of their brands and the added value of aligning their brands with specific TV, digital video and cross-platform media. The company also works with content developers to predict the marketplace value (or audience draw) of content. Using LEAP™, marketers can determine whether content is worthy of marketing investment.