Last week we reported on the new Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on household energy usage. The report also contains significant data on the usage of electronic devices. The data complements the findings in Connection Research’s recent Interconnected Home report, which asked many of the same questions, though of a smaller sample size. Combining the two sets of data and analysing other responses in the Interconnected Home report, some key trends emerge:
- Television usage is universal – more than 99% of households have at least one, and the average household has two. Around 60% are old style CRT TVs, and around 40% are flat panel TVs (mostly LCD or plasma).
- About one quarter (25.2%) of homes have a surround sound home theatre system. Most homes (83.0%) have a DVD player or recorder. But the figure has declined from 87.3% five years ago. The decline is most likely due to the increased popularity of internet downloads of movies and TV show
- The proportion of homes with a desktop computer has declined from 59.7% to 54.6% over the last five years, but the proportion with a laptop computer has grown from 38.1% to 60.9% over the same period. Nearly 90% of households have at least one PC.
TV and PC technology is merging. They will always be separate devices (the “lean forward” versus “lean back” experience), but they both have flat screens, and they are both increasingly connected to the internet. That is already the norm with PCs – many applications rely on internet connection. It is also becoming much more popular with TVs, which are increasingly downloading content from the internet, often with the PC as an intermediary.
Many TV stations offer the availability of downloading or streaming from the internet shows that the viewer may have missed. The availability of devices such as Apple TV and the usage of services such as Telstra’s T-Box or Optus’s new MeTV has made “shift viewing” less important.
Watching TV via the internet, whether the content is streamed or downloaded legally or illegally for later viewing, is changing the viewing habits of millions of Australians. The trend will continue. Pay TV penetration in Australia has peaked at about one third of households, and as many people are now discarding Pay TV as are taking it up.
Digital transmission has all but supplanted analogue. Most households now have a digital TV or a set-top box, and the last analogue signals (in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney) are scheduled to be turned off at the end of 2013. They already have been in many regional areas of South Australia and Victoria.
The TV world is changing. In fact, it has already changed. But what is not changing is the amount of energy all these devices are using. They are becoming more energy efficient, but the number of devices is increasing, and so is their usage.
TVs and PCs and their attendant equipment already make up more than 20% of the average household’s electricity usage – half as much again as HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), nearly twice as much as refrigeration, and three times as much as lighting.
It all comes at a price.
