Over 28mn US adults have confessed to this dastardly behaviour – with male and younger viewers significantly more likely to do so, according to the survey, conducted by research firm Harris Interactive.

Scandalously, a fifth (21%) of those respondents who admitted to ‘stream cheating’ were likely to do so while their significant other was asleep. Over half (66%) would do so by themselves on the main TV.

Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at Netflix, warned that the company “can’t be held responsible for any trust issues, lovers’ spats, or marital troubles that arise from watching ahead of your partner. We also will not cover any therapy sessions. As always, we advise to Watch Responsibly.”

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Alex Iskold, CEO of GetGlue

Alex Iskold, CEO of US social TV app GetGlue, discusses the effect second-screen experiences are having on linear TV viewing patterns, the absence of time constraints on GetGlue, and his vision for where second-screen advertising is heading.

Alex will be speaking at the TV:Xperience event taking place in New York City on July 15th-17th. For more information and to register, please visit www.tvxperienceevent.com.

How are second-screen experiences changing linear TV viewing patterns?

The second screen is becoming an accepted companion for linear television viewing.

Every evening hundreds of thousands of viewers routinely engage with each other using Twitter and second screen apps like GetGlue, Viggle, and Zeebox.

Common activities include discussing the show, enjoying additional content like videos & pictures, reading re-caps, answering polls, quizzes and more.

All the second screen activity has created an important feedback loop for linear television. More people are viewing socially engaging shows live.

Communities for Walking Dead, True Blood, Fringe, Breaking Bad, Homeland and Game of Thrones have been a regular digital water cooler for fans to connect with each other.

Its more interesting to watch live because you can be a part of the conversation on the second screen.

How is GetGlue acting on this change?

GetGlue’s approach to the second screen has been to create activity feeds for each show. Each feed is a mix of comments, video, pictures, re-caps, gifs, memes and more.

The feeds feature friends, and upvoted content by GetGlue community. As a result, each show has a real-time activity stream that is really interesting and engaging to all the fans.

Unlike other second-screen platforms, we don’t require the experience to be synchronous. Fans are free to consume and contribute the content at their leisure.

We do see the biggest activity happening when the shows are live and in primetime.

Do you agree that the integration of adverts into second-screen experiences needs to become more nuanced?

Absolutely. Second screen presents an exciting opportunity for advertisers and brands to connect with passionate fans. GetGlue’s approach has been to deliver a set of native advertising products, which make sense in the context of our network.

Specifically, any brand can create a piece of content on GetGlue whether its a video or an image or a message and then pay to promote this piece of content to specific audience on GetGlue.

Like any other piece of content, the ads have Like and Comment features. The idea is if one of my friends finds the ad interesting and interacts with it, the ad would hop into my feed.

This notion that people would actually find ads interesting is one of our core beliefs.

We no longer live in the world where people want to get blasted with irrelevant ads. Instead, ads are becoming pieces of content, that in case of GetGlue are embedded along with the content that our fans already like.

We really believe that this is the direction advertising is going to evolve in the future.

What are some of the most effective ‘triggers’ for encouraging consumer engagement?

It depends on the type of the consumer. Many people for example, enjoy discussing the shows. TV is so good and people are so emotional about it, that just by giving people an outlet to talk about it is enough.

Another group is looking for utility. They are not likely to contribute to the conversations but they instead want to find what to watch instantly.

We are building towards a completely personalised world where GetGlue can instantly tell you what is on for you right now on TV, streaming, online, in theatres, etc.

And of course there are folks who like to unlock rewards and incentives. Whether its a cool sticker with your favourite character or a coupon, some people find the rewards exciting.

The key is to not over do it on rewards, make them fun and scalable while keeping the core value proposition to the consumers around social and utility.

Of these VOD services, around a fifth are film VOD services, with the remainder being catch-up TV services, trailer services, newspaper video services and film archives. The EU’s largest economies have the most film VOD services, with 48 established in the UK, 34 in France and 33 in Germany.

The body warns that cross-border provision of on-demand services is particularly common for film VOD services, which might make it hard for service providers to observe national regulations regarding the promotion of European works or for contributing to production funding.

Another significant finding of the report is that a select few small countries have a comparatively large number of services for their size which are being targeted at other markets: for example, Luxembourg hosts 86 VOD services, including Apple’s iTunes Stores for most other European countries as well as many countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Sweden (36 VOD services) hosts various services that target the Nordic countries such as SF Anytime and Canal+ Digital, while the Czech Republic (31 services) hosts various language versions of HBO OD, which targets Central Europe.

Nearly half (45%) of the EU’s VOD services are operated by US groups, either from the United States or via subsidiaries in Europe. Subscription VOD services are described as having proliferated in the EU in recent months, with 76 have been identified by the Observatory.

After polling pay-TV operators in North America, Latin America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Infonetics found that just 6% currently deliver multiscreen video using a residential gateway, but many have considerable interest in doing so in future.

A separate study by Motorola Mobility last March found that the living room remains the “epicentre” of the home content experience, although viewers want to be able to move content between devices more easily.

Under the preliminary agreement, Vodafone has committed to purchase a certain volume of both VDSL and new vectoring lines which are to be installed by DT as part of its €6bn high-speed broadband rollout, expected to benefit around 24mn homes.

Niek Jan van Damme, head of Deutsche Telekom’s Germany business, said: “We are delighted to have another partner on board in the shape of Vodafone to share the investment risk. This gives us greater certainty of achieving the necessary number of customers for the new network and lets us push ahead with the roll-out.”

The contract signed with Vodafone also defines a new wholesale product: the layer 2 bitstream line, which is handed over to the competitor’s network much closer to the end customer, allowing Vodafone to generate more added value of its own because less network performance is required from Deutsche Telekom.

Vodafone is expected to purchase the conventional layer 3 bitstream line as an interim solution until the new wholesale product – known as layer 2 handover – is implemented.

The cooperation agreement will be submitted to the Federal Network Agency and the Federal Cartel Office for approval. Cooperation is scheduled to start before the end of the year.

The new U-verse On Demand storefront features a new user interface with more intuitive navigation, poster art to help users find what they want faster, new advanced search tools, a section called ‘My Videos’ which lets users keep track of current rentals, a section called ‘My Queue’ which lets users save search results, and ‘My Offers’, which provides easy access to discounts and free offers.

More enhancements are already planned, including an advanced recommendation engine to help customers find the content they want to watch. The new storefront will be launching in more markets on an ongoing basis throughout the year.

AT&T revealed last month that it enjoyed its best quarter for IPTV net adds in two years during the three months to March 2013, adding 232k subscribers in the period to reach a total of 4.8mn.

AT&T’s new On Demand storefront

The company adds that early data suggests an overwhelming majority (75%) of those signing up to its YouView packages are upgrading from Freeview. The telco launched its YouView packages last September.

Dido Harding, TalkTalk’s chief executive, said: “We believe, over time, that three-quarters of our customer base will take our TV offer. It is a brilliant way to start the pay-TV journey, particularly for families seeking great value mass-market entertainment.”

Looking ahead, in the autumn TalkTalk will launch a value-for-money ‘Essentials TV’ product with a smaller, lower-cost YouView set-top box, which will be available to all 4mn TalkTalk customers. The company also plans to offer a wider range of specialist channels including some catering for different languages.

The YouView devices, worth GB£ 299 (US$ 450), combine DTT linear channels with PVR features, on-demand services including catch-up TV from the major UK broadcasters, and access to Sky’s over-the-top TV service ‘Now TV’.

Rival telco BT launched its own YouView packages shortly after TalkTalk last year, but – perhaps tellingly – failed to reveal how many it had sold when it revealed its Q1 results last week.

The report adds that mobile is increasingly being used as the primary screen for consuming TV and video content by younger viewers, who now intuitively share content via their devices, and by viewers in developing markets who may not have access to fixed broadband.

Western Europe is expected to account for the most mobile TV viewers by 2017, representing over a fifth of the global user base. The Social TV market is also expected to grow significantly to 2017, as the market matures and key players develop their business models.

Report author Siân Rowlands points out that “we are now seeing companies such as YouTube trialling paid channels to get a slice of the marketplace. This will have incredible repercussions throughout the mobile space given YouTube comes preinstalled on an immense number of devices and the Android platform’s billing options”.

However, it remains to be seen whether YouTube will be successful with this new monetisation model, according to Juniper, which points out that similar paid channels were launched back in 2011 with limited success.

The firm estimates that there were around 2.5mn IPTV subscribers in Russia by the end of 2012, with the telcos Rostelecom, VimpelCom and MTS accounting for the lion’s share (55%, 35% and 6% respectively).

There were an estimated 26.4mn broadband customers in Russia by the end of last year, and the report identifies limited broadband footprints as being one of IPTV’s biggest barriers to greater adoption, along with rising content prices.

The report estimates that there were nearly 32mn pay-TV subscribers in the country by the end of 2013, up 11% from one year earlier.

The report estimates that just over a quarter (26%) of US broadband homes now own a smart TV. A large majority (79%) of owners are thought to use their smart TV to watch premium online video on a monthly basis.

Describing mobility as a “key part” of the connected home, Stuart Sikes, president of Parks Associates, estimates that the average US broadband user is currently watching 1.6 hours of video on a mobile phone each week.

“As service subscriptions become saturated, competition shifts to content and multiscreen offerings, and our research shows consumers are watching the same kinds of movies and TV programs on mobile phones and tablets as they are on computers and TV sets,” added Sikes.