When Did TV Watching Peak? (theatlantic.com)

An anonymous reader writes: With Netflix and Amazon Prime, Facebook Video and YouTube, it's tempting to imagine that the tech industry destroyed TV. The world is more than 25 years into the web era, after all, more than half of American households have had home Internet for 15 years, and the current smartphone paradigm began more than a decade ago. But no. Americans still watch an absolutely astounding amount of traditional television.

In fact, television viewing didn't peak until 2009-2010, when the average American household watched 8 hours and 55 minutes of TV per day. And the '00s saw the greatest growth in TV viewing time of any decade since Nielsen began keeping track in 1949-1950: Americans watched 1 hour and 23 minutes more television at the end of the decade than at the beginning. Run the numbers and you'll find that 32 percent of the increase in viewing time from the birth of television to its peak occurred in the first years of the 21st century.

Over the last 8 years, all the new, non-TV things -- Facebook, phones, YouTube, Netflix -- have only cut about an hour per day from the dizzying amount of TV that the average household watches. Americans are still watching more than 7 hours and 50 minutes per household per day.

Comments

Actively watching or passive background

[Alascom]

"...watching more than 7 hours and 50 minutes per household per day"

I suspect people aren't "watching" as much as just leaving a TV playing in the background. To Nielsen, they would appear as the same thing.

Re: Actively watching or passive background

[phantomfive]

Having worked with Nielsen data, I would suggest you are overestimating the quality of their data. It is truw they could do that, but I don't think they do. On the other hand, if you pay them enough, they will give you detailed data so you could probably do that kind of analysis yourself.

Re:Actively watching or passive background

[Anonymous Coward]

I also wonder how accurate their data is.

A few years ago when we got one of the surveys, my wife listed me as watching most of the shows that she also watched (I watch ~2-8 hours of TV per WEEK, let alone the 2-3 hours/DAY she was watching). When I saw the survey and asked her why she did that, she told me that she wanted to be nice. I had to explain to her that they don't want "nice", they want accurate data.

If the survey had been addressed to me, it would have gone straight into the recycle bin.

Re:And we all wonder how Trump got elected.

[jonsmirl]

Are people really watching 8hrs a day or is the TV simply on? We leave ours on all of the time when not at home because the dogs like hearing the voices and they don't misbehave.

Found the real cause of obesity:

[Rick Schumann]

Americans are still watching more than 7 hours and 50 minutes per household per day.

FFS I didn't even watch that much the last time I was unemployed. People need to cut the other cord: the power cord to the TV, and GO OUTSIDE.

I have the news on with the sound off

[HangingChad]

I keep the news on my office TV with the sound down. Does that count me as a watcher of traditional TV? I would argue I'm not really watching it and that's hardly traditional. Same when I'm watching Netflix. I might have the baseball game on one TV muted while I'm watching streaming on another. Even with all that going, I might be working and using the TVs for background noise.

None of those statistics really capture the new paradigm.

Netflix & Amazon are TV

[Luthair]

Netflix & Amazon are TV, they're just a different delivery mechanism. We didn't talk about cable destroying TV as it became more popular than antennas.

Youtube & Facebook are different IMO as they serve an entirely different kind of content.

Re:And we all wonder how Trump got elected.

[apoc.famine]

On their website, Nielson says:

Chosen at random through proven methodology, Nielsen’s U.S. TV families represent a cross-section of representative homes throughout the country.

That's a lie.

Nielson only selects people who watch enough TV to survey. We don't really watch TV, and Nielson sent me their diary for a week and told me if I filled it out they'd let me do a month's worth and pay me a pittance.I figured I would to see what happened. What happened was that they sent me a response saying in effect that I did not meet their criteria to be a "Nielson Household". Why? We didn't watch enough TV. Too much Netflix and YouTube, and not enough cable.

So while I can believe that Nielson has an understanding of what people are watching on TV, it's complete bullshit to call this number the average that Americans watch per day. It's the average of users who Nielson thinks watch enough TV that they want to survey. Nothing more, nothing less.