The Importance of Social Motives for Watching and Interacting with Digital Television

Contrary to a key assumption of the TV industry, interaction with digital interactive TV (iTV) programmes and ads is driven as much by social motivations as it is by information seeking. This insight was revealed by a survey of a representative sample of 867 digital TV households in the UK, which has one of the largest and most experienced digital iTV audiences in the world. This new survey used a comprehensive but efficient set of motivation items, so that no important motivations were left out, which may explain why social motivations emerged as important in this study, whereas they have not been in studies of traditional TV watching. Suggestions are made for how marketers and programme producers can make iTV content that appeals to viewers who are motivated by social needs.