Edentify has been carrying out research into IPTV usage in Australia since the beginning of 2014, with the aim of providing information on people’s attitudes and usage of IPTV content and services in a rapidly changing market. IPTV in the context of this study is defined as:

Programs that have been streamed or downloaded from the internet, rather than programs that have been watched on a regular TV.

Across the course of the study, some striking differences have emerged between men and women, in the way that they access IPTV as well as what they view.

The first key difference between the genders is that men are more likely to use multiple devices to access TV content online than women. Furthermore, women are less likely to watch on a smart TV, on a TV using a device that enables internet access or on a smartphone.

As well as using these devices, men are also more likely to use multiple services to access TV content online. While FTA catch-up services show no difference between gender, other services show significant differences. Most notably, 42% of males have used an online subscription service, compared to 35% of females, and 41% of males have used peer-to-peer file sharing, compared to just 28% of females. Streaming websites and files from friends/family also showed a male gender bias, although not as strong.

When it comes to TV channels viewed, most either skew male, or are watched equally by both men and women. But further to this, what is most interesting to note is that although commercial FTA channels 7, 9 and 10 have a fairly even gender split, their respective catch up services skew female. However, almost all other IPTV services on offer, including new services Presto and Stan, skew male. Why is this?

One possible explanation is a difference in viewing habits among men and women. Could it be that women are fussier about their viewing than men, and are carefully planning their viewing time using these channels’ catch-up services? While men are happy to watch whatever happens to be live on TV, but because they are not as engaged with the types of shows which feature on 7, 9 and 10 would not bother using catch-up TV to watch them if missed, and instead choosing to look around on other services for something else to watch.

And when it comes to the difference in how they view and on which devices, could this simply be gender stereotypes at work, in that men are more in tune with technology and women don’t have the same inclination to experiment, or understanding of, new devices and systems, even if they have them in their household? We hope to explore this further in the future so watch this space.