Watching Television (35%) Most Popular Form of Home Entertainment for Canadians

Toronto, ONTARIO - According to a new study conducted by Ipsos-Reid on behalf of Samsung Electronics, watching television is the most popular form of home entertainment for Canadians (35%) followed by reading a book (25%).

Two-thirds (63%) of Canadians indicate that they rely mostly on television for accurate news and information, while approximately one in ten opt for radio (13%) or daily newspapers (12%). Seven percent say they relay on the Internet most for accurate news and information.

As for what types of programs Canadians are most likely to be watching on television, one in three (33%) say they most frequently watch news programs, followed by documentaries or educational programs (16%), sports (14%) drama (12%) and sitcoms (12%).

Asked specifically about television sets, nine in ten (92%) say a television's image quality is important, including two-thirds (64%) who say it is very important to them. Further, when asked what the single most important factor they consider when evaluating or purchasing a new television, four in ten (39%) cite image quality, while half that number (21%) say price is the most important factor for them. In fact, if money were not an issue, seven in ten (72%) Canadians say they would buy a high definition television (HDTV) with high picture quality.

As for uses of the household television, aside from watching regular television programs, seven in ten Canadians (69%) indicate that they use their television to watch videos and previously recorded programs on a VCR, while 49% use the TV to watch DVDs, and one in four use it to watch movies and programs by satellite (25%) or to play console video games (23%).

Looking ahead to the future, Canadians appear to be evenly divided as to whether television will be more important (49% much more important/somewhat more important) or less important (46% much less important/somewhat less important) as a source of entertainment and news.

And finally, one in three Canadians (35%) believes that the future of television will be a convergent device that acts as a television, computer, and stereo in one, while one in five believes television will continue to add new features without an additional cost (18%) or that television will continue to improve picture quality (18%).

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted on behalf of Samsung Electronics between April 15th and April 17th, 2003. The poll is based on a randomly selected sample of 1,009 adult Canadians. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

To view complete release including regional and socio-demographic breakdowns, please see attached file

For more information on this news release, please contact:

John Wright
Senior Vice-President
Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900