TORONTO \u2013 Turns out that Canadian television viewers aren\u2019t much different from those in other countries. Research shows that in-home viewing promotes \u201chousehold bonding\u201d while providing a much-desired cultural connection to the outside world.<\/p>\n

Not that the advertising industry knew this instinctively. In fact, it\u2019s been looking in the wrong direction for awhile, according to Christian Kurz, SVP, Global Consumer Insights, Viacom. Kurz believes the future will bring more live programming and events to get people to watch programming at a specific time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a media industry, as media executives, we have a very warped view of the world, particularly when it comes to media consumption. We are just not normal,\u201d Kurz says in this interview conducted by Beet.TV contributor and Furious Corp. CEO Ashley J. Swartz at the recent Future of TV Advertising Forum<\/a>. \u201cAnd we completely misrepresent what the rest of the population does,\u201d Kurz adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe overestimate their use of mobile their use of online for big TV viewing, we completely underestimate the importance of TV sets. We are more urban, we are more male, we are younger. So there\u2019s a really big discrepancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those are among the reasons why organizations like thinkTV<\/a> set out to ask viewers what they really think, beginning with their definition of television. It is anything that is professionally produced video content between seven and 90 minutes\u2014which leaves out short-form video and movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really means that when they talk about television, they have a slightly different conversation than we have in the industry ourselves. So we kind of need to recalibrate with that,\u201d says Kurz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In recent thinkTV research, survey respondents in Canada had to give up watching television for 10 days. \u201cPeople completely underestimated how television brings people together\u201d both in the home and \u201calso in the wider world, the cultural connection,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Some survey respondents indicated they had given up social media \u201cbecause they didn\u2019t want to spoil the stuff they\u2019re not watching on TV. So then the connection to the outside world is completely gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among linear TV\u2019s attributes are flexibility and versatility because it \u201ccan be active and lean-forward when you really want it to, but it also is the easiest thing when you come back from school or work or whatever and just press a button.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWould you call it escapist?\u201d Swartz<\/a> asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly escapist. That\u2019s essentially what it is. It\u2019s escaping reality,\u201d with the exception of news programming.<\/p>\n

Asked to speculate on the state of television three years hence, Kurz demurs but offers some predictions:<\/p>\n

\u2022 There will be much more on-demand consumption, but \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily believe that dumping all of a series at one point is going to be the norm because people actually like the idea of watching something occasionally. It gives you something to talk about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 More linear TV programming will become dependent on \u201clive-ness,\u201d and not just traditional awards, news and sports. It could be \u201ccameras following police cars around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The \u201cevent-ization\u201d of everything. \u201cThe shiny floor entertainment shows, they\u2019ve been big, they\u2019re going to continue to be big, because there\u2019s a reason for you to watch it at the time. You can vote, you can participate.\u201d<\/p>\n

This video was recorded in Toronto at the Future of TV Advertising Forum. This Beet.TV series is sponsored by Finecast<\/a>. For more segments from Toronto, please visit this page<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 Turns out that Canadian television viewers aren\u2019t much different from those in other countries. Research shows that in-home viewing promotes \u201chousehold bonding\u201d while providing a much-desired cultural connection to the outside world. Not that the advertising industry knew this instinctively. In fact, it\u2019s been looking in the wrong direction for awhile, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":56360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[]},"categories":[7491],"tags":[4342,6785,7490,7539,7540],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.beet.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}