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You Are Still Watching a Staggering Amount Of TV Every Day (recode.net)
Peter Kafka, reporting for Recode:TV! It's cooked! Toast! Doneso. Ready for the fork. Except not yet, because Americans are still watching a ton of TV, every day. For some of them, it's the equivalent of a full-time job. The average American watches an astonishing 4.5 hours of TV a day, according to a new report from Nielsen. Add in DVR time, and that number gets up to 5 hours a day. That usage is shrinking over time -- a couple of years ago, Americans were averaging five hours and twenty-three minutes a day.Nielsen's data also shows that people are now consuming more content on their smartphone devices than ever. Compared to just 47 minutes usage in 2014, it is now up to one hour and 39 minutes.
The fact of the matter is that they have been struggling for years to keep pace with the barrage of new video consumption choices Americans have. They still don't have a handle on it. And there are many in the broadcast/cable industry who uphold they never really had a good grasp (Those diaries! seriously...?) of who was watching what. Their customers are the broadcasters, not, say YouTube channels or Twitch feeds, so they will always have that bias...
Is DEC still even around? I vote that Slashdot takes down the DEC logo since the editors seem to be too young to understand that Digital is/was a company. Putting their logo on this story is as pointless as putting Apple's logo on a story about fruits vendors on street corners.
I would be really interesting to see some sort of demographic break down on those TV numbers regarding things like income level, geographical location, employment, etc. I have a gut feeling that TV viewing has gone up in some demographics and down in others. Honestly I don't even know many people who watch more than 4.5 hours of TV a week much less a day. But most of my friends play video games instead of watch tv so it's not like we have any stones to throw about sitting on the couch to much.
Those assholes came to my door once asking if I would like to be a "Nielsen" household. They went over the details, and even offered money for the bother.
Let me tell you, whatever they offer, it is not worth it. They come in and connect a comm closet full of equipment to your TV so they can intercept whatever video is being fed to your TV. That would be fine, except their equipment causes all kinds of compatibility issues. They also insist on installing their software on any PC you watch streaming services on. That would also be fine, except their software also collects your non-media browsing habits, and has a keylogger so I can only assume they steal your passwords as well (I only installed their SW in a virtual machine).
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. I told these guys that I rarely watch TV. Perhaps once every couple of weeks when I'm too tired to do something more valuable with my time.
If you don't watch TV for 24 hours, the phone rings. If you don't watch TV for 48 hours, the phone rings every 30 minutes until you answer. They harass you CONSTANTLY to watch more TV. After 5 days they actually send someone to your home to find out why you're not watching TV.
When you _are_ watching TV, you have to hit control buttons on their box every half an hour or so, or the harassment increases.
After about 2 weeks I called them up and told them to come get their shit off my front porch.