Comscore throws light on media consumption patterns during Coronavirus

The company's latest blog post studies how the online behaviour of Indians has evolved since the nationwide lockdown was put in place back in March.

A majority of India has been under lockdown since March 24, 2020, and during this period, media consumption patterns have changed drastically. Comscore's newest blog post attempts to throw light on the different categories of media consumption during the lockdown period.

The likes of offices, schools, etc., are working remotely, and the internet has emerged as a window to the outside world, facilitating a channel to work, socialise and entertain, remotely. In this context, how have the consumers been spending time?

The blog post, written by Alex Gevers, a senior insights manager at Comscore, highlights the fact that the shift from offline to online activity has been significant. The time spent per visitor per month increased significantly during the month of March, as compared to the previous month (February) – an 18 per cent increase.

This number breached the 3,400 minutes per visitor per month mark during April, which was previously the highest level ever recorded since Comscore started measuring digital audiences in India, writes Gevers. By the end of April, the average was more than 3,600 minutes per visitor per month – or more than two hours per day per visitor.

The time spent across different categories varies, too. Comscore's data shows that on an average, visitors are spending close to 28 minutes per day consuming entertainment-related content, from movies, music and music players. This includes the likes of Netflix, YouTube, Hotstar and JioTV.

Social networking came in a close second, with visitors spending an average of 25 minutes a day on virtual communities in a bid to feel more connected to their loved ones. It's interesting to note that e-commerce, previously a high traffic category, now sees the least amount of time spent (on), with roughly four minutes a day spent on online manufacturers and retailers. This has to do with the restrictions imposed on the delivery of non-essential commodities by the government.

The time spent on a category is not necessarily indicative of the percentage change in consumption of the category. Take gaming, for example. The interest in the category and time spent online per person has increased by 62 per cent. But time spent per day per consumer has only increased marginally, to 12 minutes.

Social networking and instant messenger sites (like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp) were among the other digital categories that increased the most: by 35 and 33 per cent, respectively. This is considerable, given how deeply engrained into our lives these categories already were prior to the Coronavirus pandemic.