Venezuela: free-to-air TV continues its leadership

According to a MEDIAX study, the Venezuelan viewer leads the time of switching on a Even with the penetration of pay television, which grew from 39% to more than 50% participation in a period of two years, local open-signal television continues to be the option most watched by the public.

“Despite the growth of the pay TV and electronic media market, free-to-air TV continues to be the leading entertainment provider in Venezuela.” This was stated by Eduardo Caballero, president of MEDIAX Media People, a Venezuelan consulting firm specialized in optimizing audiovisual media operations.

Even with the penetration of pay television, which grew from 39% to more than 50% share in a period of two years, local free-to-air television continues to be the option most watched by the public and has barely lost two points of market share in that period. Recent studies even indicate that pay TV users count free-to-air TV channels among their favorite channels, led by VENEVISION and TELEVEN. "Specialized channels such as MeridianoTV or GLOBOVISION follow in penetration; those belonging to the national public media system, headed by Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) and regional television stations, which have had significant growth in recent years," he explained.

Caballero also indicated that one of the phenomena of local viewers is that they subscribe to pay TV services, but they also use them to watch local channels. This statement seems to make sense given the habits of soap opera consumption, the rebound in local production on national channels and the rise of news channels of one political tendency or another, in a country that does not stop giving surprises in terms of information.

The first in Latin America

Venezuelans like to watch television, which is the main source of entertainment for a population that is increasingly taking refuge in their homes for security reasons and due to the high cost of entertainment options such as cinema or theater. In this sense, Caballero points out that Venezuelans watch an average of 4 hours of television a day, compared to the average of 3 and a half hours in the rest of Latin America. "This level, however, is not uniform as it depends on age groups and sociodemographic strata. This is how lower-income populations, and much more specifically women, monopolize the screen with greater intensity. Men, for their part, are consumers of nights and weekends, while soap operas are still the queens of television in Venezuela.