Mobile changing media habits

A report from Edison Research on the Smartphone Consumer looked at how and where smartphone owners used their devices, and more interesting for the future of media, looked at the differences between smartphone owners and those without.  With cell phone ownership now approaching 90%, and evenly split between those with smartphones and those with more basic cellphones, media usage differences are likely to start impacting overage media use metrics.  Here's some highlights -

• When listening to the radio at work, more than half of smartphone owners report listening to the radio on their smartphone.  Overall they are more likely to listen to the radio at work through their smartphones than listen over their computers (listening via regular radio still dominates, accounting for 59% of listening)
• Smartphone owners are much more likely than non-smartphone cell phone owners to frequently (several times a day or more) engage in the following media behaviors: browse the internet (46% v. 5%); use social networking sites (34% v. 4%); listen to downloaded music (25% v 3%); listen to online radio (12% v 1%); and watch videos (11% v. 1 %).
• Compared to non-Smartphone owners, those with smartphones: watch less TV (3:20 hrs/day v. 4:05 hrs/day); spend much more time on the internet (3:24 hrs/day v 1:38 hrs/day) - in fact, they spend more time on the internet than they do watching TV.
• Smartphone owners spend more time listening to the radio (2:26 vs 1:52) and less time reading newspapers (0:19 vs 0:26) than those who do not own smartphones.
• 29% of smartphone owners report listening to Internet radio streamed from a cell phone through their car's stereo

While legacy media are likely to initially see this as a negative. a loss in audience, I'd interpret these findings more as a warning.  As mobile devices and broadband capacity improve, people are likely to shift some of their media usage to those devices - the message that legacy media should take from this is that they need to make sure their content is available for those new devices and delivery mechanisms.

Source - The Smartphone Consumer 2012,  Edison Research press release.
Presentation slides accompanying the report