There has been a drive over the last few years, to get people to use their phones, tablets and other devices to watch TV and films. So it’s an interesting that a survey conducted in the UK recently has found that the traditional TV is still by far the most popular medium for viewing today.
In fact less than 2% of total viewing in 2013 was conducted using mobile devices and platforms. Hardly anyone in the survey regularly watched much TV using their phone which perhaps may come as a big surprise to many phone manufacturers. It’s no surprise to me though, perhaps it’s my aging eyes but the idea of spending any time watching something on a phone or even a tablet does not appeal at all.
The survey didn’t just cover standard TV either, it also included catch up TV services like BBC Iplayer, ITV player, Sky GO and other stations. So it becomes clearer that although manufacturers are driving us towards watching services on other devices nothing else really comes close to the traditional TV screen
One are that may skew the findings is if the survey was extended internationally. One of the reasons is that much of this content is accessible online but there is a problem. All the UK stations for instance are not accessible outside the UK even using the internet. They all check your IP address when you connect and block viewing from other countries, the same happens everywhere else – all the major US media channels are not accessible outside the USA. But thousands of people circumvent these restrictions by using proxies and VPNs to watch whatever they want – this video demonstrates.
This method is not difficult to set up using a computer, laptop or other media device but even on Smart TVs it can be difficult. The problem is that many manufacturers don’t allow much access to the network configuration settings on their devices presumably because it makes support easier or perhaps under pressure from the broadcasters.