Today, smart TV is dominant in home television viewing. In fact, according to research by Discovery Communications, 90 percent of viewers prefer the smart TV for watching TV and they like to watch it with other people. One third of people would actually prefer to do all of their interacting on their Smart TV and not have a second screen.

At The Media Insights & Engagement Conference in San Diego this afternoon, Beth Rockwood, SVP Market Resources and Advertising Research at Discovery Communications spoke to us about her recent research that highlights how smart viewers favor smart TVs.

She and her team at Discovery Communications spoke to viewers about why they would be interested in buying a smart TV and what features they would want. Rockwood and her team conducted an online survey of about 1,000 people probing into expectations, behaviors, and desires around smart TV.

Key findings include:

The research shows that smart TV makes viewing social again. Being together in a group, it gives the opportunity for people to chat about the TV show together. In fact, 62 percent agreed that they watch TV together with others more often because they watch on a big screen.

Additionally, with a smart TV you have more control over the content you can access instead of having to pay for products you don’t want. It allows content discovery that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. According to the research, viewers are watching more now than before they had a smart TV.

Further, with smart TV’s viewers expect smart advertisements. They are looking for ads that are less intrusive, more relevant, provide an interesting story, and teach them something.

Overall, according to Rockwood, smart TV will change the way viewers are viewing, so there is a huge opportunity if high consumer expectations can be met.

About the Author: Amanda Ciccatelli, Social Media Strategist of the Marketing Division at IIR USA, has a background in digital and print journalism, covering a variety of topics in business strategy, marketing, and technology. Amanda is the Editor at Large for several of IIR’s blogs including Next Big Design, Customers 1st, Digital Impact, STEAM Accelerator and ProjectWorld and World Congress for Business Analysts, and a regular contributor to Front End of Innovation and The Market Research Event,. She previously worked at Technology Marketing Corporation as a Web Editor where she covered breaking news and feature stories in the technology industry. She can be reached at aciccatelli@iirusa.com. Follow her at @AmandaCicc.