Forecast: Look for media usage to slow post-pandemic
PQ Media has released their 2020-2024 Global Consumer Media Usage forecast and among the more interesting predictions is this: global media usage will likely be flat, with only an expected 1% increase is usage; in 2020 usage across both online and offline media increased nearly 3% to more than 50 hours per week per user on average. Digital media usage, however, saw a nearly 10% growth rate as consumers stayed home to shelter-in-place during lockdowns.
“We projected last year that consumer media usage would likely reach a tipping point at which media consumption flattens by the end of 2023. And while the pandemic reversed some secular trends in 2020, we believe this was simply a short-term disruption of key long-term trends that will resume in 2021,” said Patrick Quinn, CEO, PQ Media. http://www.pqmedia.com “The prime beneficiaries of this paradoxical growth surge in media usage were consumer-supported media, particularly digital video, audio, games, social media and chat services. There’s no doubt that streaming media as a group were the hands-down winners in an otherwise loser of a year for many media stakeholders, particularly those dependent on advertising-driven media.”
Other interesting findings from the report include:
• 28% of all time spent with media (2020) was digital
• Mobile video, audio, and gaming each saw at least 15% increases in usage
• Print media, book consumption, and radio audiences all saw significant usage increases through Q1 2020
• Japan, Russia, and South Korea showed the highest usage rates globally
