Audio Driving Increase In Time Spent With Digital Media

Total time spent with media has stalled in the US, with declines in time spent with TV and other traditional media being offset by increases in time spent with digital media, reports eMarketer.

In 2019, time spent with media by US adults will average 12 hours, 9 minutes per day (referenced as 12:09), a 1-minute increase from our estimate last year. (We account for multitasking in our figures: If a consumer is using two different media in the same hour, we count that as 2 hours of total time spent.) This is a negligible gain compared with the 1.5-hour increase in daily time spent from 2009 to 2015.

But next year should be more positive for marketers: eMarketer expects a 4-minute increase in time spent, when tentpole media events like the 2020 presidential election and Summer Olympics begin in earnest.

Overall, digital video is the big winner as it displaces traditional TV, with more people making deliberate content consumption choices. No longer passive recipients of media, people are becoming more active programmers of their media day.

“Mass adoption of smartphones made media multitasking standard procedure for many people, and this often consisted of looking at social media or other content on a phone while sort-of-watching TV,” said Mark Dolliver, principal analyst at eMarketer.

“But if you’ve made a considered decision to watch something on Netflix and have paid a subscription fee to do so, you’re less likely to distract yourself by layering another kind of media usage atop that. So, less multitasking means less of an increase in total time spent with media,” he said.

One factor contributing to digital’s gains is the rise in digital audio. More widespread adoption of smart speakers adds a bump to digital time spent, as do the increasing popularity of podcasts. eMarketer estimates that daily time spent with digital audio in 2019 will average 1:20 and increase to 1:24 next year.