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02 Dec
Table of Contents
Introduction
During 2020, media consumption habits have changed drastically due to COVID-19. In this insight report, we explore the preferences of Irish consumers and their new media consumption habits.
Preferred Media
The most preferred form of media was social media. Over 56% of respondents ranked social media as their highest preference. This indicates that they use social media more than any other media. The internet came in second, with 31% of respondents saying it is their most consumed form of media. 50% of respondents said the internet was their second highest consumed media, with another 25.8% saying social media. The lowest preferred form of media was magazines, with 48.5% saying so. Looking at the majority of votes, the preferred media goes; social media, internet, TV, radio, newspapers and then magazine.
Purpose for Consumption
We asked respondents to select he most important purpose for their consumption of TV, radio, internet, social media, newspaper, magazines. The four purposes we included were hobbies & interests (e.g. sport, fashion), general knowledge, entertainment, education. Across the forms of media, entertainment was the highest ranked purpose, with the exception of newspapers and the internet. In the case of the internet, 29.8% of respondents use it for entertainment purposes, while another 34.8% using it for education. For newspapers, general knowledge was the highest rank, then followed by education. 71.9% of respondents watch TV for the purpose of entertainment. 66% also consume social media for entertainment too.
Hours Spent
94.5% of respondents said they spend less than 1 hour a day on magazines. 89.7% said they spend less than 1 hour a day on newspapers. 73.9% said they spend less than 1 hour listening to the radio and then 38.4% spend less than 1 hour on TV. Notably only 6.6% use the internet for less than 1 hour a day, and another 11.5% of respondents use social media for less than an hour. The media with the most time spent on it was the internet, where 28% of respondents spend more than 4 hours on it each day.
Times of Consumption
59.1% of respondents consume more media at the weekends. TV is mostly consumed between 6 – 10 pm which checks out considering that that period of time is known as primetime. Radio and newspapers are mostly consumed during the morning between 6 – 10 am. Most respondents use the internet during the day between 2 – 6 pm. Similarly to TV, social media is consumed mostly between 6 – 10 pm, however unlike TV, there is more distribution between the time periods is more even than TV.
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Key Takeaways
- Social media is the most important and popular form of media, followed by the internet.
- The most common purpose of consumption across most forms of media is entertainment, though the internet is mostly used for educational purposes, which makes sense since the introduction of online learning.
- Magazines are the least popular form of media and 94.5% of respondents said they spend less than 1 hour a day on magazines.
