66% of people consider radio to be the most reliable and accurate source of media content, followed by 58% for online (editorial), 54% for TV and 34% for newspapers. Only three in ten internet users trust web content.

It’s very easy to get enthusiastic about the potential of social media especially if you are embedded within the industry. But you’re not necessarily your target audience.

Change is undoubtedly taking place in the way people consume media and brands communicate with their audiences and there’s no doubt that the future lies in engagement.

But do not underestimate the influence of mainstream editorial media as a means of generating influence.

Speed’s view – for now – is that no media whether broadcast, print, online or social, can work in isolation.

Wieden + Kennedy’s Neil Christie says that it’s been a disappointing campaign for the UK’s marketing industry: social media has played a limited role; creative thinking has been short supply; and when the history books are written it’ll be TV that won the election.

“This was the election that was supposed to be decided by mumsnet, fought out Obama-stylee across social media and where the only thing that was 100% certain was that old crappy media like TV would have no role whatsoever to play in the decision making process. But it hasn’t quite worked out that way has it?”

No it hasn’t.

It’s a story that’ll have social media specialists spluttering into their skinny lattes this morning. But it’s an irrefutable fact. Brits are watching TV for more than a day each week: four hours and 18 minutes a day to be precise – according to Q1 figures issues by BARB this morning.

The actual number could be much higher. BARB doesn’t include content broadcast over the internet. It only tracks live programmes that are watched as they are being broadcast or within seven days of being broadcast.

Anecdotal evidence to support this story isn’t hard to find. The UK election was predicted by social media proponents to be the first social media election. In the event it’s the TV debates have led the news agenda and conversations.

Photo by autowitch on Flickr.

It claims that the leaders’ debates on television are a triumph for traditional media and that “much-touted social media such as Twitter is so niche as to be almost invisible”.

There’s also the demographic issue. Newspaper and TV audiences are older and more likely to vote.

The article ‘Shock of the old’ acknowledges that the TV debates have played out through social media but that when it comes to “voters who matter” its old media that is still the best.

According to TV number crunchers writing in the latest bulletin from BARB (PDF), time-shift viewing accounts for less than 6 per cent of total view in July 2009 up from 1.2 per cent in July 2005.

BARB doesn’t monitor internet TV viewing habits but a recent Ipos Mori survey commissioned on its behalf calculated that 10 per cent of adults had watched TV via the internet in the last week for approximately an hour and three-quarters. Scaled across the population this gives a viewing time for all adults of 0.17 hours or approximately 10 minutes per week. The average viewing figures for traditional TV over this period was 26 hours per week.

The situation is more extreme in the US according to Nielsen’s Three Screen Report. Figures issued for Q3 for the previous 12 months show that almost 99 per cent of all video content watched in the US was via tradition TV. DVR and web TV watching is growing but has yet to make a significant dent in the overhaul viewing numbers.

Several people in my network commented last night on Sunday evening how Twitter has been used as a conversational channel during X Factor series. TV producer Gary Hayes writing in The Guardian last week (via @markpinsent) suggested that in future social media will drive TV audiences.

The first is the conversations on Twitter during the broadcast of X Factor on ITV1. We’ve got use to Twitter providing a backchannel to conferences but on Saturday and Sunday evening it was the choices made by the X Factor judges that generated conversation among Twitter users.  There is potential here for incredibly potent TV and additional revenue – just as soon as broadcasters find a mechanism to harness Twitter conversations within the production process.

The second is news that England’s World Cup qualifying match versus Ukraine on Saturday. This game was to be broadcast by failed sports channel Setanta. Instead digital sports specialists Perform will broadcast it over the web for a pay-per-view cost of £4.99. Perform streams more than 15,000 live matches over the internet every year and works with many Premier League and Football League clubs. It’s a fantastic model and it will be interesting to see what size of audience the game attracts and if the UK’s broadband infrastructure hold up.

The Evening Standard reports tonight that a “secret memo” issued by the BBC tackles difficult issues of the age and gender of the former judge.

What complete and utter nonsense. Everyone in PR will have recognised the memorandum is a media Q&A. It is a standard tactic used a briefing document for anyone that has to face the media.

Q&As are typically tedious documents drafted to ensure that all spokespeople stick to the script and are prepared for tricky questions from the media.

• To stream a programme via the internet using  BBC iPlayer or YouTube, you don’t need a TV Licence (providing that it isn’t being broadcast simulataneously).
• But to watch live content via satellite (Freesat or Sky), or to download it onto a PVR for playback, you need a TV Licence.
• To download content via the Internet for playback using a service such as 4oD Catch-Up or iTunes, you do not need a TV Licence (providing that it isn’t being broadcast simulataneously).
• But to stream a programme via the internet using the BBC iPlayer or BBC web site live services, at the same time as it is being broadcast, you need a TV Licence.

Confused? I was until I checked out the TV Licensing web site. Here’s what it says:

“[...] if you use any device to watch or record television programmes at the same time (or virtually the same time) as they’re being shown on TV, the law requires you to be covered by a TV Licence.”

There is almost certainly trouble ahead for the TV Licensing Authority as viewers increasingly download programmes from content providers after they have been broadcast. Don’t you think?