Consumers spend most of their viewing time on...

Consumers spend most of their viewing time on free broadcast and subscription TV -- 11 percent on each -- but they spend four hours a week on average viewing user-generated content, said a survey by Arris, released Wednesday. Respondents spend seven hours each on on-demand or “TV catch-up” services and on Internet TV without a set-top box, and they spend five hours a week viewing streamed content from a paid TV service, Arris said. For streamed content, the laptop remains the preferred viewing device, with 55 percent of respondents using one, followed by a desktop PC at 53 percent, Arris said. Smartphones are the third most viewed device for streamed content at 42 percent, while 33 percent of respondents reported using a tablet. Some 28 percent of respondents said they used a connected TV to stream entertainment, and standard TVs and gaming consoles were both used by 16 percent of those surveyed. Set-top boxes provided by an ISP were used by 15 percent, a Blu-ray player by 9 percent and set-top box with subscription-based DVR 7 percent of respondents, it said. The number of consumers who owned a connected TV jumped from 16 to 35 percent between 2012/2013 and 2014, said the report, while the number of people who owned a disc player fell from 65 percent to 55 percent. The percentage of those who owned a smartphone rose from 60 to 71 percent, it said, and the percentage owning a tablet from 26 to 44 percent. The penetration of streaming media players remained in the single digits of respondents, growing from 5 percent in 2012/13 to 8 percent in 2014, Arris said. The report surveyed 10,5000 respondents from 19 countries, including 1,000 respondents from the U.S. and 1,000 from China, with an equal number of males and females ranging from 16 years old to over 65.