Study finds Australians watching more movies at home

AUSTRALIANS are increasingly ditching the price of movie tickets and watching their movies on multiple devices at home.

FORGET about the movie of the week, Australians are increasingly tuning in on all of their digital devices to watch a movie of the day.

Optus has released research which shows that a third of Australians now watch at least 10 movies a month from the comfort of their home.

And that figure is set to rise, with a third of Australians saying they are either using online and streaming video services already or plan to do so in the next three months.

Optus vice president of fixed products Sue Bailey said the research showed one third of Australians watched more films at home than they did three years ago, with a choice of devices and the breadth of content influencing the trend.

Australian movie lovers are now spoiled for choice, with the recent launch of subscription video-on-demand services Netflix Australia, Presto and Stan adding to existing options such as Fetch TV, Quickflix, Apple iTunes and Foxtel.

People are tending to watch movies at home rather than go to the cinema. The McIntosh family of Mont Albert enjoy a film. Left to right, looking at camera; Monique (8), Pia (5), Sarah (10) and Emma (6).

Along with a huge range of content, Australians are now spreading their video watching across devices. The Optus research reinforces the Australian Multi-Screen Report released last week which found about 12 per cent of the total amount of video we watch each month is viewed on a computer, tablet or smartphone.

Kate and Dave McIntosh, of Mont Albert, Melbourne, and their eight children aged between five and fifteen typify how our viewing habits have changed in recent years since the days when the family came together for the Sunday night movie of the week.

With a family of 10, the McIntosh’s movie viewing habits are spread into smaller groups and at different times.

Mr McIntosh said some of the younger kids in the family might watch a movie in the afternoon on a computer, while the older kids might watch a movie by themselves on in a small group in the evening on a television or iPad.

“There’s so much content, you can’t get to all of it,” Mr McIntosh said.

For the McIntosh, a lot of their viewing is streamed and online at YouTube and free-to-air content is a decreasing slice of their total video consumption.

The Optus study, conducted by ACA Research and involving more than 1000 people, found:

*Saturday night is the most popular in-home movie night.

*The main reasons for watching movies at home rather than at a cinema were price (58 per cent), the amount of content (54 per cent) and convenience (54 per cent).

*Frozen was the most popular movie watched at home last year.

*Gen Y are the biggest movie viewers at home.

*A third of Australians admit to being binge watchers, watching two or more episodes of a TV series back to back.