There has been a wealth of reporting about the ability to play music, or at least download and store music, on a PC, but less about playing it through a TV set. Now a new Parks Associates survey reckons that while roughly two thirds of US consumers use their PC to play music when at home, at least one third use their TV for the same function, just as high in fact as MP3 players because every home has a TV set, and not every home has an MP3 player. Handsets and both portable and fixed games players were also cited, but at far lower levels.
This all comes out in a new survey entitled Digital Media Habits version II.
“iPods are sexy, but not everybody has one,” said John Barrett, Director of Research at Parks Associates. ‘TVs are ubiquitous and increasingly capable of delivering a range of content, especially with new features like digital music delivery and place-shifting services. This is just the tip of the iceberg for TV applications.”
It’s not quite clear from this if it is the consumer electronics businesses which are offering music applications through DVD players or if this is PC users, sending their Music to the TV speakers through wi-fi networks, but we suspect a little of each.