This is some amazing data about how Mobile Apps are competing with TV Media. Whats amazing is Flurry only tracks about 1/5 of the iOS Apps. Quoted from Flurry’s Blog:
“Social games on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices are competing for television viewers. In fact, these apps, tracked on the Flurry network alone, comprise of a daily audience of more than 19 million who spend over 22 minutes per day using these apps. Treated as a consumer audience, its size and reach rank somewhere between NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, and only 4 million viewers shy from beating the number one prime-time show on television, FOX’s American Idol.
However, Flurry is only seeing part of the picture. With Flurry integrated into more than 50,000 apps, out of Apple’s stated total of 250,000 apps, Flurry has about 20% penetration. Additionally, since this analysis focuses on only two categories of applications, social games and social networking apps, it’s clear that iOS devices are already ahead of prime time television’s hottest shows.
Given that the app store only launched in July 2008, these figures are staggering. Mass consumption of applications on mobile devices has exploded in record time. Also noteworthy is that the enormous audience these applications reach takes place every day, 365 days a year. Compared to a top television series, which airs 22 episodes a season, advertisers can reach a larger consumer audience through applications 15 times more frequently.
There are a lot of conclusions that can be drawn from this phenomenal shift in audience behavior. The most obvious is the impact on the advertisement industry, which has relied on the reach generated by its prime time television slot for years. This season, while Americon Idol is busy shuffling judges, the people have voted: iOS social games are as prime time as prime time television. Enjoy the show!”
Source: Is iPhone the next American Idol
Ooh baby cool data…so you put the data chart there and then you do a little vid with some dancing bears..and “It’s a home run! The crowd’s going wild! The Mets have won the series…” Oops…got a little carried away there…
Chris, with new applications such as Yahoo TV, where viewers can interact on the Internet through the TV itself, it will be harder to differentiate between time spent on TV (shows) and time spend on the web. Which is probably just fine for companies that sell Internet-enabled TVs. But it does add anew wrinkle in terms of tracking viewing habits.