TV viewers waste a week a year searching for channels to watch
Do you spend your evenings flicking through channels or scrolling through the programme guide to find something to watch on TV?
Then you're not alone, according to a survey of nearly 2000 UK digital TV viewers, commissioned by Microsoft's Connected TV Business.
More than a quarter of digital TV viewers (27 per cent) still rely on flicking through the channels to choose what to watch, wasting more than one week a year channel surfing, says Microsoft.
On average, digital viewers in the UK spend between two and three hours each day watching TV, yet typically up to a quarter of that time is spent deciding what to watch. That adds up to more than 3.5 hours per week channel surfing, and around seven days a year.
Despite this, 73 per cent of viewers say they still miss programmes they would like to watch because they find it difficult or time consuming to find out what's on.
Christine Heckart, of Connected TV at Microsoft, says: "With so many digital channels to choose from, as well as a growing number of digitally recorded and on-demand content, it's not surprising viewers find it difficult to decide what to watch."
Microsoft has been working on more advanced TV search in conjunction with BT Vision. Its Mediaroom service is similar to internet search engines: you enter a keyword such as the title of a programme or an actor's name and the system searches the entire EPG together with the recordings on your PVR and on-demand library to find what you're looking for.
Comments
I wish Sky would upgrade the EPG so that you can hide channels you don't want to see.
miss the things they want to watch? com on, not hrd to make a note, mental or otherwise, is it? or, in the case of those with sky+ and such, theres even less excuse.
of course, we could always just have less channels. cull the rubbish, as it were.
but we wont. for many reasons.
Interesting research but Microsoft missed the point completly.. People waste a week not because they can't find something but because there is nothing interesting to find, so you just waste your time searching for a program which is not there.. Improve the content and it's going to be much easier to find what ones want.