People who use the Internet more often also read papers and magazines and listen to the radio more often.
The latest research by Ipsos shows that – contrary to widespread opinion – the Internet does not lead to reduced usage of other media, i.e. the printed press and the radio. Quite the opposite in fact, as those who surf the Internet more often also tend to use the daily newspapers, magazines and radio more frequently.
In March this year Ipsos conducted a survey covering the usage of different types of media. One of its goals was to analyse co-usage of media in specific social groups and to check whether growing usage of the Internet really does affect the consumption of other media, and if so which media.
Above all, the co-usage of media depends on the media in question and the social groups taken into account.
Contrary to expectations, Ipsos’ survey reveals that more frequent usage of the Internet does not result in people listening to the radio or reading the press less often. The reverse is actually true: people using the Internet often also read the press and listen to the radio more often.
However things are somewhat different where television is concerned: although the frequency at which television is watched does not significantly affect either usage of the press or radio, it does have an impact on usage of the Internet. People frequently watching television use the Internet less often, and vice versa: those using the Internet more often watch television less often.
The above observations apply to the population as a whole. In the meantime, the dependency between usage of specific media is different among consumers aged 15 to 49, an important group for advertisers. Although as in the population as a whole more frequent usage of the Internet in this group also menas more frequent press and radio usage, the group differs from the population as a whole in regard to television: watching TV more often in this group has no impact on how often the Internet is used.
The findings of Ipsos’ survey confirm the widespread belief that campaigns using a single channel of communications have less chance of success than multimedia campaigns. Combining the press, Internet and radio effectively increases the likelihood of contact with adverts and reinforces the power of what is conveyed because people using the Internet frequently are simultaneously frequent readers of the press and listeners of the radio. However, the greatest reach for an advertising campaign is still guaranteed by the combination of television and Internet.
The survey was conducted between 4 and 14 March 2010 on a representative random-quota sample of 1008 Poles aged 15 and over. The statistical error in estimations for this sample size is no greater than (+/-) 3.1% at a confidence level of 0.95.
