We’ve now had a chance to dip into Strategy Analytics’ survey of European digital media users. We’ll be releasing full and detailed results to clients, of course, but here’s a taster to be going on with. We find a similar pattern across age groups in Europe as in the US, in that younger Internet users are more likely to be watching TV on their PCs, and more likely to be frequent users. But the overall level of PC TV usage in Europe appears to be trending a little higher at present compared to the US, and indeed television viewing on TV sets is also a little lower. Our survey found that 30% of 15-29 year-olds in Europe claim to watch TV shows or movies on their PCs at least on a weekly basis, with a peak of 35% for 20-24 year-olds. This compares to around 25% of the same age group in the US. As in the US, the frequent usage of web TV tails off significantly in older demographics, with less than 10% of the 40+ group claiming to do this weekly. Anecdotally we are probably familiar with the idea that students are in the vanguard of adopting emerging internet services, such as the social networking phenomenon I covered recently. This seems to be confirmed in Europe, where, in terms of “occupation”, full-time students are by far the most active viewers of TV shows and movies on PCs. 35% of full-time students claim to do this at least once a week. No other single occupation category comes close; in fact every other group comes in at or below the population average of 17%. Most of us have been students in a former life, and in the pre-Internet age dubbing vinyl and CDs onto audiocassettes was a common method of alleviating boredom. So there’s no point in pointing the finger at today’s generation. Let’s face it, student life gives most young people more time than they know what to do with, unless you’re desperate to get an Oxbridge First. Add to that the fact that students are more likely to have access to high speed broadband and their own laptops, and it’s no surprise that keeping your social network up-to-speed on what programmes you watched on the Internet last night seems to keep today’s students pretty occupied when they’re not attending lectures and engaging in other, more traditional student pastimes, which incidentally were not the subject of our latest survey… Client Reading: Online Video: Global Market Forecast