That’s the jaw-dropping data point gleaned from a survey commissioned by Microsoft’s Connected TV Business and released this morning.
Microsoft, as might be expected, chooses to emphasize that its search technology can save TV viewers from wasting that week.
Presuming the survey methods were valid, I’m going to guess that the numbers would apply to TV viewers here in the U.S., too, although that’s just a guess.
The survey found:
On average, digital viewers in the UK spend between two and three hours each day watching TV yet typically up to a quarter of that time is actually spent deciding what to watch. This all adds up to over 3.5 hours each week spent channel surfing – over seven days per year! Young adults (16-24 year olds) are most prone to channel surfing with one in five (20 percent) spending more than a quarter of their TV time finding something to watch as compared to one in 20 (5 percent) of over 55’s.
Stop hogging the remote, Grandpa, junior needs his fix.
As noted above, where some may see evidence of the decline of civilization, Microsoft sees an opportunity to tout its technology.
Christine Heckart, of Connected TV at Microsoft said, “With so many digital channels to choose from as well as growing volume of digitally recorded and on-demand content it’s not surprising viewers find it difficult to decide what to watch. To get the most out of your TV service you need to be able to find what you want to watch, when you want, quickly and easily. That’s why we made search a key feature of Mediaroom, which is used by BT for its BT Vision TV service. Microsoft has been studying and refining TV search with input from consumers around the world for over nine years.”
Search on the TV works in much the same way as Internet search. You enter a keyword such as a program title or actors name and the system searches the entire program guide together with the recordings on your DVR and on-demand library to find what you are looking for.
Personally, I cut way back on my channel surfing once my cable company’s channel line-up neared 1,000. Now I know which neighborhoods on the dial contain my favorites and skip from one to the next before starting a channel-by-channel surf. So I’m guessing I don’t fritter away more than a day or two a year here (sigh). And I find the hunt for something to watch soothing most of the time, in part because I’ll often stumble across something interesting that I wouldn’t have imagined would interest me.
Just my way of saying that I’m doing fine with the TV, thank-you very much Microsoft.
By the way, Bruce Springsteen knows of what bedevils chronic channel-surfers:
I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a truckload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
See, it’s television’s fault.
