Digital TV and online TV - Competitors or Allies ?

Considering the onset of digital TV and online TV which is available through the broadband, TV industry is bewildered and wondering about the TV viewing habits of its customers. Studies conducted by couple of market researchers have revealed people are still going to prefer watching regular TV.

Researchers have revealed that people in UK still watch television for 3.75 hours on an average. In early 2010, most of the UK houses have switched over to digital TV, it is just 8.2% of UK households which have yet to switch over from analogue to digital.

A lot of factors can be accounted into the existing popularity of watching TV – analogue or digital format as compared to online. Beginning with you have a ready TV up and connected which already airs TV programmes, so it is easy for you to simply begin watching TV whenever you want to. On the other hand for online TV, you would require a computer and a good speedy broadband connection and your choice of online demand programmes.

Weather in UK also plays a major role in determining the TV viewing patterns of UK households. Long winters, snow blizzards and storms force most of the people to stay indoors and get entertained by watching TV.

With the onset of digital TV and set top boxes, watching TV has become an enjoyable activity as you can record your preferred programmes, pause and rewind live TV and even record TV programmes as per your convenience. Giving you the advantage of using an in built TV guide, programme scheduler and interactive TV, digital TV is becoming a preferred source of family entertainment.

On the other hand watching online demand TV depends mainly upon the download broadband speed you enjoy. Faster broadband speeds enable you to download movie or TV content faster and thus watching it becomes an enjoyable experience. At the same time, on demand TV is relatively cheaper as compared to a TV pack which has to be paid for an entire month.

It is essential to first figure out what people actually mean by saying watching TV content online. They could be even referring to a trailer or a short clipping which is available online for promoting a particular movie or sports event. The figures on online content viewers so collected are therefore misleading especially when stating that online viewership is on an increase.

On the other hand there is a direct co-relation between the two as on viewing a audio-video clipping online, people may be actually motivated to tune in to their digital TV sets and sit through the entire movies, programmes or even sports events.

Hence, there is no scope of competition between the digital TV and on demand TV, both are here to stay as people love watching TV programmes (as the audio-video format of entertainment) of all types.