1. Introduction

Deloitte Services LLP announced the results of a study, "State of the Media Democracy, Second Edition" today at CES. This study was designed to determine how Americans between the ages of 13 and 75 are consuming data.

One of the biggest surprises from the study, Ed Moran, Director of Product Innovation at Deloitte noted was that ’personal broadcasting’ is a growing trend across most age categories surveyed. In the first iteration of the study, done in 2006, 40% of people agreed with the statement "I am increasingly making my own entertainment through editing my own photos, videos and/or music," and the number increased to 54% overall in the second iteration in 2007. More people began creating their own entertainment during the time between the surveys.

Among a group defined as ’millennials,’ people between 13 and 24 years old, 69% of respondents agreed. A second group, labeled ’Xers’ (25-41 years old) registered 62% agreement, while older groups in the survey also indicated that they were creating their own photos, videos and music. All of this is from the 2nd iteration of the survey.

In the table below, the second statement, "With all the technology available to me today, I actually consider myself to be a "broadcaster" of my own media" was not asked the first time this survey was taken. Results in the columns reflect percentages, by group, in the second survey.

While "I am not going to argue that self-created content is a threat to professionally edited or professionally created content, (the survey) clearly shows that there is a desire among people to participate in their own entertainment and to shape it," Moran said. "10 years ago, this didn’t occur to people, I’m very surprised to see how quickly it’s grown." Moran noted that the tools used to create digital entertainment have ’gotten easy to use,’ and that there is now "a sea change taking place in terms of entertainment."

The survey shows that the appeal to users is not just creating content - people are actually viewing their digital creations. 69% of those surveyed, across all age groups indicated that they use the Internet "frequently/occasionally" for "Watching/listening to content created by others (Web sites, photos, videos, music and blogs)." This number of users jumped from 52% from a year earlier. "We’re beginning to see that it’s not just a lot of people posting their own stuff, a significant proportion of the online community is looking at that stuff," Moran said. "On the demand side, it’s important to see what people are actually doing with that content. User generated content is a very popular target of consumption. Rather than being just a flash in the pan, the user-generated content phenomenon continues to grow both on the supply side and on the demand side," Moran concluded.