Getting to Know the 2014 Filipino TV Viewer

Watching television has always been one of Filipinos’ favorite pastimes. According to Kantar Media, the highest rating TV programs for the third quarter of 2014 were game shows (21.65%) and primetime soap operas (17.68%). These figures reflect what Filipinos watch but what else do we know about Filipino television viewing? Kantar Media present some facts to help us get to know the Filipino TV viewer better.

Time Talk

According to Kantar Media, Filipinos spend an average of three (3) hours per day or almost a fifth of their waking hours watching TV. This year, Filipinos watched an extra hour, recording up to four (4) hours a day in front of their TV sets compared to the previous year. Moreover, Kantar Media studies showed that most Filipinos watch TV programs during the primetime slot, from 7:00 PM until 11:00 PM.

Rural VS Urban

Although bulk of TV viewership can be attributed to urban areas, for the first nine (9) months of 2014, Filipinos in rural communities registered 38% of the total TV viewing in the country. Almost 35 million Filipinos in rural areas tuned into their televisions during this period, data from Kantar Media revealed.

Breaking Gender and Age Stereotypes

Most sports TV programs feature male athletes. Contrary to popular belief that men significantly dominate sports viewing, Kantar Media data clarifies that 46% of the audiences of sports channels are in fact women. Kantar Media recently released a study on Filipino viewership of FIBA, FIFA and UFC, three major global sporting events of 2014. According to its findings, Women comprised 46% of Filipinos who watched the FIBA Basketball World Cup, and 40.8% of those who watched the FIFA World Cup this year.

Similarly, while cartoons are traditionally characterized as children’s programs, 53% of their Filipino TV audience are aged 20 years old and above. This proves that indeed there is an inner child in everyone.

Affluent Class households and Free-to-Air TV

Of the 200,000 ABC1 Individuals watching television, 162,000 watch free-to-air TV. This figure translates to about 81% of upper and upper-middle class households who do not rely solely on channels offered by cable providers. These household watched local drama TV programs the most, with a collective rating of 8.1% (among the top 20 programs of the same genre).

Lights, Camera, Advertisers!

Even with the additional competition from digital media in the past few years, TV ad spending shows no sign of decline. Just in the third quarter of 2014, TV ad spend reached P78 billion, about P3 billion more than the previous quarter. Detergents and laundry products were the top advertisements, followed by corporate advertising and milk powder, respectively.

Despite the boom of the internet, tablets, and smart phones, Filipinos still turn to television for news and entertainment. “Television is still the most stable and influential medium in the country,” Gabriel Buluran, Kantar Media Philippines General Manager said. “With 80.5% penetration in households across  the country, the television isn’t going anywhere, anytime soon.”