How does television viewing time change according to women's life stages?

Looking back on life, many people likely feel that "how we interact with TV changes with each life stage." Not only do preferences for what programs we want to watch change, but the amount we watch is also significantly influenced by age and life stage.

Our relationship with television and how we watch it evolves according to our current lifestyle. Based on this hypothesis, we delve into the reality of television viewing, focusing particularly on women who experience diverse life stages.

 

What factors influence TV viewing time?

Analyzing data from the diary-style survey "MCR/ex" (Video Research Ltd.), which provides detailed insights into daily media activities and various other behaviors, revealed results consistent with the initial intuition. Figure 1 provides an overview of the key findings.

If we define "watching TV" as "live terrestrial broadcast viewing time," the influence relationships can be illustrated as follows. Demographic attributes influence daily life awareness and in-home activities, which in turn affect other factors... and the structure of influence becomes visible, with live terrestrial broadcast viewing time being determined.

What is the overwhelmingly major factor influencing TV viewing volume?

Figure 2 re-illustrates representative scores within this structure.

The numbers ① to ⑩ in the chart rank the top 10 factors most significantly affecting women's TV viewing volume. Let's pick out key points from this in bullet form.

Factors influencing live terrestrial TV viewing time
・① Age is by far the most significant determining factor.
・② Longer time spent outside the home for work or school leads to lower TV viewing time, regardless of employment type. Notably, ⑨ full-time workers have lower viewing time on workdays.
・Conversely, viewing increases with higher levels of habitual viewing (③) and multitasking viewing tendencies (⑤).
・Regarding program genres, ⑥ a preference for variety shows is key to longer viewing times.
・The effect of highest educational attainment is significant regardless of employment status or work arrangement. ④High school graduates and ⑧junior college graduates (or current students) have higher viewing time compared to university/graduate school graduates (or current students).
・Viewing time increases among those who are unemployed, particularly full-time homemakers.
・High scores on TV information exploration factors (⑩), such as "I am well-informed about new TV programs" or "I know what programs are currently trending," correlate with higher live terrestrial TV viewing.

This analysis reveals how individual life stages significantly influence TV viewing volume. Examining these life stages further reveals six representative segments among female TV viewers.

Female TV Viewers Divided into Six Segments

Using the "MCR/ex" data introduced so far to quantitatively understand TV viewing time and daily activity schedules, DENTSU SOKEN INC. conducted original group interviews based on the viewer profiles revealed by this data. Combining these qualitative findings, let's explore the six segments of today's female TV viewers.

As we introduce these six segments, you might recognize someone close to you or even yourself, thinking, "That's someone I know!" or "That's me!"

This segment consists of full-time working mothers who continue working after childbirth, juggling both careers and childcare. Their daily activity time is also the longest among the six segments, centered around "work/school."
It's clear they have little time to sit down and watch TV calmly. At the same time, we can point out that among the six segments, they have the highest ratio of "multi-tasking viewing" both on weekdays and weekends.

This segment includes mothers who leave their jobs after childbirth but continue working part-time to support the household. They spend more time at home than full-time working mothers, with weekday TV viewing exceeding 2 hours. Another characteristic is their higher replay viewing volume compared to other segments, both on weekdays and weekends.

After childbirth, they quit their jobs to focus on childcare, enjoying time spent with their children within a childcare-centered lifestyle. On the other hand, they also have a mindset of loving TV and wanting to watch it all day if possible, but currently hold back a little considering the impact on their children.

Busy single women juggling work, hobbies, and socializing with friends. Their TV viewing time is similar to that of full-time working mothers. A key characteristic is that this segment shows the largest difference in live viewing time between weekdays and weekends (83 minutes on weekdays vs. 173 minutes on weekends, a 90-minute gap).

After their children entered elementary or junior high school and required less constant attention, they resumed work on a part-time basis. They watch approximately 3 hours of live terrestrial broadcasts on weekdays and about 4 hours on weekends, making them a demographic highly compatible with live programming.

With children entering elementary or junior high school, they tend to spend their free time during the day—when children are absent—doing things like having lunch with friends or watching TV. Live terrestrial broadcast viewing averages about 3.5 hours per day.
Notably, they also have the lowest rate of multitasking viewing among the six segments.

Going forward, capturing female viewers who engage in multitasking while watching TV will be crucial.

As seen so far, the survey reveals that among female TV viewers, viewing time correlates with their life stage.

Generally speaking, regarding the relationship between women's life stages and TV viewing time, "later marriage" and "rising employment rates" tend to have a negative impact on TV viewing time. Furthermore, these two factors are highly likely to continue advancing as broad trends in social structure.

According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the employment rate for women aged 30-34 was 53.7% in 2005 but rose to 71.0% by 2014. Furthermore, in 2015, policy directions like the "Society Where All 100 Million People Play an Active Role" were announced, providing another perspective from which to identify these structural trends.

The "multitasking viewing" highlighted in this survey can be understood as a phenomenon well-suited to the current era. Furthermore, as women's participation in society continues to advance, the importance of female viewers who engage in multitasking viewing is likely to increase. In this way, focusing on life stages can also provide marketing insights for considering the future of television viewing behavior.

Furthermore, as mentioned in a roundtable discussion based on a separate survey conducted by DENTSU SOKEN INC. Media Innovation Research Department (see "How Will 'News' and 'Media' Change?" for details), television remains the primary medium relied upon by the 80% of the population outside the highly engaged information segment (approximately 20% of the total). A broad segment of the population still relies on television and word-of-mouth as channels for obtaining and sharing information, even in the modern era. This underscores that the importance of understanding television's current state and analyzing its audience remains unchanged.

To grasp television's future, as attempted in this study, it is essential to secure an analytical perspective that captures not only technological variables like ICT development but also changes on the consumer side, such as the diversification of life stages. As evident from the discussion so far, the findings in this paper also serve as contemporary proof of how television functions as a social apparatus.

[DENTSU SOKEN INC. "Women's Media Exposure" Survey Overview]
Data Analysis Survey
● Data Source Used: MCR/ex (Video Research Ltd.)
Analyzed key factors influencing TV viewing time using one week's worth of diary-style lifestyle behavior survey data

Group Interview Survey
●Date: March 21, 2015
●Participants: Women in their 30s residing in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures
●Number of Groups: 2 groups