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Online versus TV - still one sided

Comscore just released their latest numbers for European Internet usage. Two things stood out for me. First, the UK has maintained its position as the most online and the most engaged European country.

Despite the size of the base, the UK is also one of the fastest growing markets in terms of engagement. Of major developed countries only Sweden had a faster growth in engagement (14% YoY growth plays 9%); Russia and eastern European countries continue to grow strongly but from a very low base of online engagement.

The average online audience member in the UK now spends one and a quarter hours a day online, which brings me to my second point. Although viewing fell very slightly this year (pre-Olympics, it must be said), live TV occupies an average of 4 hours and 1 minute a day of everyone's time. And 90% of this content was consumed live, despite more than 50% of the population now owning a DVR.

So live TV, the medium that has been "dying" since the late '80's/ '90's/ 2000's (pick an inflection point) still dominates media consumption, even in the most advanced market in Europe.

My advice: don't put too much into that online media startup just yet...

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