Television versus the Internet: A comparative analysis of traditional and new video platforms in substitutability, perceptions, and displacement effects

In today's multiplatform video environment, this study sheds light on the use of the Internet as a video platform. When a new medium emerges in the marketplace, one of the prevailing goals of related research is to identify the factors that predict consumers' decisions to adopt the medium. However, most of these types of studies tend to focus on the new medium alone. In reality, though, the new medium coexists with traditional media; consumers' use of, or attitude toward, traditional media may influence their decision to adopt the new medium. Furthermore, the introduction of the new medium might also influence consumers' use of traditional media. Recognizing the fact that that new and old media coexist in the market, the overarching aim of this study is to examine how the Internet and television, as video platforms, are interrelated with respect to consumer demand and time.;To that end, this study employed mail surveys of a random sample of Internet users throughout the United States. The findings indicated that both actual users of online video platforms and people who are likely to adopt online video platforms expect different things from online video platforms than from television. The perceived substitutability between online video platforms and television negatively affects the intention to use online video platforms. This study also revealed that the perceived compatibility of online video platforms has the strongest impact on the intention to use online video platforms --- but the compatibility was perceived as being very low. Meanwhile, the relative advantage and compatibility of online video platforms decrease the likelihood of using television. With respect to the displacement effect of online video platforms on television, this study found that, overall, the time spent using the Internet to watch video content reduces the time spent watching television. However, the presence of the displacement effect actually depends on what type of video content consumers watch online, how much of that content overlaps between online video platforms and television, and what types of online video venues consumers use.