Leisure in the Home

In 2008, UK consumers are predicted to have spent £40.7bn on leisure in the home, compared to around £63.8bn on leisure activities outside the home. Some of the many in-home activities are:

Home viewing — £9.2bn was spent on home viewing in 2008. This includes: spending on the purchase of television equipment; paying the Licence Fee (a `tax' on owners of television sets); and, in most households, subscriptions to multichannel television services.
Reading materials — consumers spent £8.1bn on books, newspapers and magazines. Books have had a good decade, inspired by children's reading (especially the Harry Potter phenomenon), massive bestsellers such as The Da Vinci Code and reading groups, promoted on television.
DIY — £6.75bn was spent on DIY materials, one of the few physically active leisure pursuits in the home (along with gardening, £3.45bn).

Other leisure markets in the home include: playing games (both traditional and electronic); listening to music; and simply entertaining friends or relatives In a 2008 survey — commissioned by Key Note and conducted by NEMS Market Research — 72% of adults said they regularly entertained in the home, but by far the most common pursuits are more passive: watching television; reading; and listening to the radio or recorded music.

The most significant growth market in the consumer survey, however, was `surfing the Internet', occupying 68.9% of adults in 2008, up from 58% in a similar survey conducted in 2006. When using the Internet, consumers are more actively engaged than they used to be, thanks to social networking and websites that encourage hobbies such as collecting (eBay), contacting long-lost friends and relatives (Friends Reunited or Ancestry.com) or downloading music. Alongside these hobbies, and the rise in reading books, Key Note suggests there is evidence of a movement away from purely passive leisure. Symbolic of this has been the phenomenally popular gaming console Wii, from Nintendo, which may be the most important development in home leisure in this decade. Most Wii games either require physical activity or offer intellectual stimulation.

Nintendo is just one of a host of giant companies competing for the attention of the consumer at home. Some, like Nintendo in console games, are specialists in a particular market. The variety of specialists includes: B&Q, the leading home-improvement chain; Dell, market leader in home computers; and Global Radio, the top commercial broadcaster.

Other parts of the market, however, are dominated by diversified groups with global operations. One such example is Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, based in Australia and the US, but with powerful media influences in the UK through newspapers, Sky TV and HarperCollins books. Through its 20th Century Fox subsidiary, News Corporation is also one of the six global groups owning the Hollywood studios that continue to dominate the market for movies. Even more diverse among the global groups is Sony, which has interests in movies, music and gaming consoles (PlayStation). Sony also has leading brands of home hardware (televisions and Walkman music players).

In contrast to these multinationals is the BBC, which continues to act as a driving force in UK broadcasting. Secure in its current role until at least 2017, the BBC has been investing in multichannel television (as joint owner of the Freeview service), publishing of books and magazines and the Internet, where its iPlayer is leading the trend towards watching `television' on computers or even mobile phones. Key Note believes that a main question for the future of in-home leisure is the extent to which consumers will accept the demise of separate appliances (television and computer) for basic home viewing.

This Key Note Market Review on the UK market for leisure in the home was compiled at a time of deepening economic gloom. In periods such as this, consumers will obviously think twice about spending on the more expensive leisure goods and services, while the credit crunch persists. Leisure markets are vulnerable because they involve non-essential purchases and it is also easy for consumers to save money on in-home leisure (e.g. by borrowing books instead of buying them, or by giving up television subscriptions and watching free multichannel television). Given these downbeat factors, Key Note is forecasting just 4.4% growth for in-home leisure spending between 2009 and 2013, although within the overall market there will be winners such as toys and games, home improvement and reading materials, and losers such as recorded media and home listening.

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