Survey: How Do You Watch TV?

For years, I’ve been thinking about how much our viewing habits have changed — and whether the way we listen has kept up.

Movies, streaming series, concerts, documentaries and YouTube now account for a large share of the time many of us spend using our audio systems. At the same time, increasingly dynamic soundtracks can mean quiet dialogue, loud effects, frequent volume changes, captions, and different listening preferences within the same room.

I’ve experienced all of those things myself, and they’ve raised some questions I’ve been thinking about for nearly a decade.

How often are we adjusting the volume? How much of our listening time is actually spent watching video rather than listening to music? And if video has become the content we consume most, is there room for a new way to listen to it?

Rather than guess, I’d like to hear from you.

We’ve put together a short survey about how you actually watch and listen at home. There are no right answers and it only takes a couple of minutes.

We’ll share what we learn in our next newsletter and keep the conversation going.

Take the survey, 9 short multiple choice questions and room for your comments.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

1. When watching movies or streaming TV, how often do you adjust the volume during the program?

• Never
• Occasionally
• Frequently
• Constantly

2. What usually causes you to change the volume?

• Dialogue is too soft
• Music or sound effects are too loud
• Both
• Someone else prefers a different volume level
• I rarely change the volume

3. How often do you turn on closed captions or subtitles because dialogue is difficult to understand?

• Never
• Occasionally
• Frequently
• Almost always

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4. Which situations make dialogue hardest for you to follow? Check all that apply.

• Quiet or softly spoken dialogue
• British or other unfamiliar accents
• Dialogue mixed with music or sound effects
• Late-night viewing at lower volume
• Watching with someone who prefers a different volume
• None of these

5. What percentage of the time your audio system is in use are you watching movies, streaming TV shows, or YouTube videos rather than listening to music?

• 80-100%
• 60-79%
• 40-59%
• 20-39%
• Less than 20%

6. If movies, streaming shows and YouTube make up a large part of what you consume, would you consider adding a new way to listen if it offered clearer dialogue and more control over your personal listening level, while preserving the music and sound effects that bring a production to life?

• Yes
• Maybe
• No
• I never thought about it

7. Before taking this survey, had you ever thought of frequently adjusting the volume as a problem that might have a solution?

• Yes
• No
• I never really thought about it

8. If you could hear dialogue more clearly at your own comfortable volume without changing the room volume for anyone else, how useful would that be to you?

• Very useful
• Somewhat useful
• Not very useful
• Not useful to me

9. Would you like to learn about a personal TV audio system designed to address these issues?

• Yes
• Maybe
• No

10. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about how you watch TV, listen to movies or streaming content, or deal with dialogue and volume changes? (optional)

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