TV Still The Favored Media Habit.

Widespread and intense media multitasking defines the emergent Content, or ‘C,’ Generation, as quantified in a study of simultaneous media consumption released by The Media Center at the American Press Institute. But TV remains the favored form of media most often paired with simultaneous usage with other media options.

According to the fourth update of the Simultaneous Media Usage Survey (SIMM IV) conducted by BIGresearch in May 2004, reading the mail while watching TV tops the list of simultaneous media usage, a behavior practiced regularly or occasionally by 73.9 percent of consumers. Rounding out the top five SIMM usages are: reading the newspaper while watching TV, practiced by 64.5 percent of consumers; watching TV while reading the mail, practiced by 64.2 percent of consumers; on the Internet while watching TV, practiced by 62.9 percent of consumers; and reading a magazine while watching TV, practiced by 59.2 percent of consumers.

But when it comes to choosing which channels to watch, 40.8 percent of consumers say they spend a larger percentage of time viewing cable television versus 37.5 percent of consumers who say they spend more time watching traditional TV networks.

Other key SIMM IV findings include:

Media influence on retail purchasing varies by product category. For example, for apparel purchases, in-store promotions have the most impact on consumers, while world of mouth remains the most influential in electronics purchases.

Consumer usage of New Media options continues to grow, with 74.9 percent of consumers saying they regularly or occasionally use cell phones, up from 68.7 percent six months ago (SIMM III).

New Media usage is dominated by 18 to 44 year-olds, with the heaviest use of blogs and picture phones among 18 to 24 year-olds (23.3 percent and 29.7 percent respectively), and among 25-34 year-olds (22.6 percent and 25.4 percent respectively).

Other study findings and details are available in a video briefing here.

The SIMM study is an eye-opening window on the frequent simultaneous use of media by consumers. As new technologies enable mobile media consumption, The Media Center expects the quest for mindshare and influence to become as important as the quest for audience mass and brand awareness.

The research provides quantifiable data on consumer media behaviors as an alternative to traditional audience measurement techniques, which at best capture bodies or time in front of devices but do not necessarily capture mindshare or influence.

The Simultaneous Media Usage Study was conducted online in May 2004, using Big Research’s proprietary sampling technique, with 13,414 respondents participating. The margin of error is +/- 1 percent.