Home Entertainment Becomes Family Focal Point

LONDON, February 17, 2011 - British families are more likely to watch TV together than eat together,
as the telly has become the hub of all family life, according to a new
survey.

Only 5 hours a week are spent eating with family members, whereas the
average Brit will spend more than double that watching TV with their
families.

Watching the same shows together gave them 'something to talk about' and
brought them closer together as it was a 'shared experience' and more than
half said their TV was the centre of the family household.

Modern families are also more likely to stick obsessively to watching the
same shows spending hours ploughing through episode after episode on box set
than ever before.

Warner Home Video (www.warnertv.com/) commissioned the survey in
to the viewing habits of 3000 families to launch their new Warner Home Video
and HBO DVD promotion offering Season 1 box sets for GBP7.

Ian Fullerton, Marketing Director of HBO Entertainment, said: "Watching
TV box sets has well and truly become a popular past time in the UK over the
past 5 years, even with the emergence of video on demand and downloads.

"Families have said they would stay up past their bedtimes to watch more
of a box set together, turning down nights out in favour of staying in and
watching their favourite shows."

Nearly half of families admitted ploughing through box sets together with
nearly half saying they have marathon sessions where they watch episodes back
to back, hooked on storylines.

The most popular series were Friends, Entourage, True Blood and the
Sopranos as families agreed they preferred watching their favourite shows
with other members of their family. Families were most likely to spend
hours in front of the TV at weekends with a third admitting they have watched
a whole series over a weekend together.

One in four parents even admitted sending the kids off to bed early to
ensure they got in a couple more episodes of their favourite shows.

More than a third said they had felt they had become obsessed with
certain TV shows and that one in five said they started to think of the
characters like they were their friends.

Ian Fullerton from HBO (store.hbo.com/) said: "It's encouraging to
see that it is becoming such a shared family experience and incredible how
people are becoming so immersed that they treat the characters as part of
their daily lives and even begin mimicking them!

"In these belt-tightening times there has never been a cheaper way to
start a new series box set addiction with our fantastic offer."

Men were more likely to worry about their partners getting too obsessed
with a show and the characters with 29 per cent reporting that their partners
had started acting like characters they had watched on the TV.

Nearly half said they or their family had picked up accents and phrases
from watching too many episodes of the same shows with most blaming Friends
and The Big Bang Theory for this.

Seven out of ten said they had felt sad when they came to an end of a
series and that they missed the characters.

For further information, case studies and additional quotes, contact
Alison Jackson: alison.jackson@swns.com - +44(0)7917-780563

For further information, case studies and additional quotes, contact Alison Jackson: alison.jackson at swns.com - +44(0)7917-780563