Live TV the Main Course in Canadian Media Diet

Canadians Primarily Interact With Media by Watching, More than Reading, Listening, Gaming, Browsing or Social Networking

While the media landscape continues to provide endless new ways to watch, listen and browse content, Canadians mainly engage with live television. Ipsos’ Canadian Media Landscape study (a study designed to support marketers as they strive to connect with target consumers in the new media landscape), shows that watching takes the top spot in the Canadian media diet, accounting for 50% of their total media hours yesterday. More specifically, that represents 2.8 hours of a total of 5.6 hours spent with media (all forms combined). What is particularly important for Advertisers is that 1.4 of those hours are spent watching TV as it is airing live.

Among the key generational differences revealed by the Canadian Media Landscape Study, Millennials watch less in general, spending only 39% (2.2 hours) of their media hours in this fashion compared to 49% (2.5 hours) for Gen Xers and 57% (3.4 hours) for Boomers. But there is more to it when we dig further into older and younger Millennials and the specific formats they watch. Trailing Millennials, that is, 18-24 year olds, watch the least amount of Live TV among the generations, but it is still part of their media repertoire (7% of their total media hours). Their older counterparts, Leading Millennials (25–32 year olds), spend twice as much time with Live TV relatively speaking (16% of their media hours). Marketers need to be aware of these inter-generational differences. Leading Millennials in some ways are closer in life stage to younger Gen Xers as they become more focused on careers and family. Not only does this mean they are earning more than Trailing Millennials, but it also influences how much time they spend with media and how they consume it.