Veteran pollster Gary Morgan says take-up of online television streaming services, including Netflix, will bring major disruption to Australian business and media, and could change the way public servants in Canberra do their jobs.
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Launching Roy Morgan Research's latest State of the Nation report in Canberra this week, Mr Morgan and chief executive Michele Levine said 1.4 million Australians had already subscribed to Netflix while another 50,000 had subscribed to streaming rival Stan, a partnership of Fairfax Media.
Since launching in Australia in March, Netflix has gained subscribers through special offers from internet service providers. About 17 per cent of iiNet users also use streaming, combined with 11.7 per cent of Optus fixed broadband subscribers.
"The real change is Netflix. It has gone from 700,000 in April to a million to 1.4 million in two months," Mr Morgan said.
"It is causing havoc in Foxtel. Rupert Murdoch and Telstra made $600 million last year, that profit will collapse this year and Murdoch will only have two areas of profit: suburban newspapers and realestate.com."
The rate of take up will cause broader changes to internet use in Australia, Mr Morgan said. Netflix claims to have 65.5 million global subscribers, of which about 42 million are in the United States market.
"It is going to change the whole media industry in Australia. It is changing our industry, the media, it's going to change the way people in government and people in Canberra communicate.
"It's bigger than some political parties already," he said.
The report showed Australians spend an average of 18.8 hours a week watching television, 12.8 hours listening to the radio and 3.4 hours reading newspapers or magazines.
The average Australia is online for 17.9 hours a week, of which 13.4 hours is for leisure and outside of school or work.
Already more than 2.5 million Australians look up Australian government information online in an average four weeks, representing one in eight people aged older than 14, or 13.1 per cent.
In 2011, 9.7 per cent used the internet to access government information. The largest year-on-year increase identified by Roy Morgan came after the myGov online portal was launched, giving acess for tax lodgement, Centrelink services, Medicare and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Small businesses, job seekers, parents and workers are most likely to have access e-government services in an average four week period.
This month the government launched the new Digital Transformation Office to improve digital services.
More than 11.4 million Australians have visited Facebook in the past week, compared with 9.36 million who have visited YouTube.
