Rent-to-own News - Hispanics shaping TV viewer revolution

A consumer entertainment usage and consumption tracking study, released by the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), examined the bourgeoning Hispanic population, revealing that Hispanics are emerging as major consumers of video games, technology and video services.

The August/September CTAM Pulse, "Tracking How Entertainment, Demographics and Technology Have Changed in the U.S.," paints a picture of Hispanics as a new wave of technophiles, with 69 percent saying they are likely to stream content, such as movies and music, compared with only 55 percent of total broadband households.

"Hispanics are extreme entertainment enthusiasts," said CTAM President and CEO Char Beales. "We now know that in a variety of program genres, such as sitcoms, sports and children's programming, Hispanics watch more frequently on a TV set than total households."

In addition, Hispanics are up to twice as likely as total households to play video games on a variety of devices and they are demonstrating a growing propensity to consume content on mobile devices.

Compared to total households, Hispanics are more likely to use mobile devices and alternative platforms for entertainment purposes, and the tablet is no exception.

While tablet ownership numbers overall remain low among Hispanics and total households, 63 percent of Hispanics are interested in watching movies on tablets, while only 36 percent of total households share those sentiments. In addition, 59 percent of Hispanics are interested in watching TV programs on tablets compared to 35 percent of total households.

This research is based on an Address-Based Sampling (ABS) survey conducted by CENTRIS as part of the CENTRIS(sm) omnibus survey conducted from July 18-26, 2011 and includes tracking questions since 1994. The CENTRIS sample includes 802 randomly selected adult consumers age 18+.

Fifty-five percent of weighted respondents are cable customers, including 22% who have premium cable and 39% who have digital cable. Thirty percent of respondents are satellite television customers. This study has a +/- 3.5 percentage point margin of error.

The Hispanic sample was based on a telephone survey conducted by CENTRIS as part of the CENTRIS(sm) omnibus survey conducted from July 18-August 31, 2011. This sample includes 366 randomly selected Hispanic consumers age 18+. This sample has a +/- 5.3 percentage point margin of error.