Cord-cutting in Canada is contributing to digital video’s strength against TV. One estimate from Boon Dog Professional Services stated that Canadian TV providers (including traditional, satellite and telco) lost 278,000 subscribers in 2019, up 63% from the year before.

Digital audio has undoubtedly benefited from the UK lockdowns. Even with reduced commuting likely eating into their time spent with mobile audio, UK listeners still tuned in to digital audio elsewhere and will continue doing so.

Digital media and the spread of misinformation are two topics that often go hand in hand, and as the coronavirus pandemic takes hold in the UK, consumers are turning to tried and tested methods of acquiring necessary information. With a less splintered and partisan than what’s found in the US, organizations like the BBC and other traditional media continue to be the go-to sources of information for UK consumers.

China’s time spent with smartphones saw an abnormally big boost in 2020, just as nearly all other forms of media consumption did all over the world. Pandemic-driven social circumstances led people to spend more time with TVs, digital screens, and—in some cases—digital audio. This led to an 8.3% increase in overall media time in China last year.

If the event is to be especially local this year, what is the state of media habits in Japan? TV remains the dominant source of media consumption in Japan: According to our April 2020 estimates, time spent with TV will continue to grow this year, rising 0.6% to about 3 hours, 28 minutes. That accounts for 44.9% of the average time spent with media, which is a slight downtick from 2020’s 45.5%.

The first reported cases of COVID-19 were in Wuhan, China, in late December 2019. The government then issued a mandatory quarantine order on January 23 that confined the city’s inhabitants to their homes, and other cities soon followed with their own lockdowns. With little to do and nowhere to go, media usage in China spiked.