The latest Australian Multi-Screen Report reveals an increasingly connected Australian home, with 27% now having access to four screens: television, computer, smartphone and  tablet (16% a year ago).  The report, which covers the first quarter of calendar 2013, shows media consumption  patterns are evolving as households add new technologies. 

Amid the proliferation of new technologies, overall use of the main household TV set has  been constant over the past three years, demonstrating people’s voracious appetite for  television and other video content. 

In 2017, there will be nearly 30 million cars shipped with 3G/4G cellular connectivity with more than 100 million in total on the road at that time according to MRG. Meanwhile, although the in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) segment is currently smaller than the cellular connectivity segment, it is growing faster - MRG's forecast puts cars with IVI at nearly 40 million shipped with more than 85 million on the road in 2017.

According to Euroconsult's recently published executive brief, "Prospects for Cellular Backhaul in Fast-Growing Economies": The market of cellular backhaul over satellite has been a vibrant vertical segment for the satellite sector in the second half of the last decade, with strong growth observed in all emerging regions. While Sub-Saharan Africa has been the largest historical market for cellular backhaul, accelerated growth has been observed in recent years in a variety of countries such as India, Brazil and Indonesia.

At the end of 2012, broadband analyst firm Point Topic reported that subscriber numbers for copper-based broadband services had fallen for the first time, with 415k subscribers lost in the fourth quarter. New figures reported by Point Topic show that this decline has accelerated in 2013, with 2.77m copper broadband subscribers lost in the first three months of the year. ‘Copper-based’ services include all DSL, ADSL and ADSL2+ subscribers reported by operators across the world. Point Topic’s database of subscriber numbers also includes cable subscriber numbers, FTTx/VDSL and FTTH.

The connected TV apps and services market is expected to explode in the next five years as new app frameworks in smart TVs, net-tops (i.e. Apple TV, Roku), Blu-ray devices and game consoles serve as the foundation for a new TV app economy. NextMarket Insights forecasts the US TV app economy to reach $14 billion by 2017, up from under $4.5 billion in 2012.

Live video continues to dominate on-demand as desktop viewers watched live video 13 times longer than video on demand (VOD) in the first quarter of 2013. Taken together, the share of tablet and mobile video grew 19 percent in first quarter of 2013 as mobile and tablet video now account for more than 10 percent of all online video plays.

Multimedia Research Group (MRG) believes that the growth of TV multi-taskers, defined as people who are using a second screen device to view or control content related to what they are watching on the big screen (TV), will be the primary users of personal program guides, and will spur continued use and development of recommendation engines. Research data confirms that there are approximately 36 million mobile device owners (14% of US 13+ adults) that use their smartphones and/or tablets in association with TV programs they are currently watching.

Global pay TV households will reach nearly 1 billion by 2018, up from 772 million  in 2012 and 814 million in 2013. According to the Digital TV World Household  Forecasts report, the Asia Pacific region will contribute 59% (587 million) of the  global total by 2018.

Based on forecasts for 97 countries by Digital TV Research, China will have the  most pay TV subs, at 313 million by end-2018, followed by 158 million in India and  107 million in the US. These three countries will account for 58% of global pay TV  households by 2018.

QuickPlay Mediatoday revealed the results of a survey focused on mobile TV and video viewing habits as well as ad tolerance in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The survey results reveal insights about ad tolerance across streaming devices, the popularity of Live TV, video on demand (VOD) and the factors that motivate users to pay for premium services.

U.S. Consumers are More Tolerant of Streaming Video Ads

By 2015 there will be an estimated 119 million connected devices, including the TV, delivering broadband Internet to TVs in U.S. homes, a 51 percent increase from the 78.5 million currently Internet connected today, according to a new report from global information company, The NPD Group