iSense Solutions Study: 10 pct of Romanians watching online video content pay for it

Only 10 percent of the Romanians that watch video online content pay for it, shows a study conducted by the research company iSense Solutions, for the media agency Initiative.

According to the data gathered for every device, only 8 percent of the people that are watching video online content on the smartphone pay for it, a similar percentage being for the laptop/PC, while in the case of the smart TV the openness for this type of content is higher (15 percent).

„Romanians are not used to pay for video content, besides the traditional TV cable subscription and this trend is mostly seen among the teenagers that are exposed to many free sources of video content viewing. Following the investigations done by the TV stations and the telecom operators we are expecting to rise the acquisition of subscriptions for the video content platforms, but this openness will come especially from the people with the age between 45 and 55, while the youngsters will continue to be reluctant,” said Ruxandra Stefan, Strategy & Planning director at Initiative.

Most of the Romanians view content online on the laptop of the PC (86 percent), the top of the preferences being completed by the smartphone (60 percent), tablet (30 percent) and smart TV (30 percent). Men, more than the women, follow video content on the laptop / PC (90 percent vs 82 percent) and on the smart TV (37 percent vs 22 percent). When it comes to the age categories, the youngsters are using more than the other Romanians the smartphone for viewing the video content (71 percent vs 60 percent din total), while the Romanian over the age of 45 prefer the laptop /PC (92 percent vs 86 percent from the total).

YouTube (89 percent) and Facebook (82 percent) are the channels that the Romanians are used to watch most frequently video online content on laptop/PC, preferring the following types of content: music videos (67 percent), movies (67 percent), funny clips (59 percent), other movies / clips (59 percent) and news (55 percent).

When it comes to the video online content watched on the smartphones, YouTube dominates the Romanians’ top preferences (90 percent), followed by Facebook (84 percent). Moreover, 38 percent of the Romanians are watching video online content on free apps, 20 percent on free websites (other than YouTube), while 5 percent pay for watching the content on websites via a subscription (ex: Netflix, HBO Go, Voyo, Antena Play, Orange TV Go etc.) and 5 percent on paid apps.

Romanita Oprea