Americans Somehow Find Time for More TV

Nielsen says Americans are finding time for both TV, averaging 151 hours of TV viewing per month - and even more for people who watch online or mobile video.

The stalwart media metrics mavens at the Nielsen Company have issued their latest “Thre Screens” report (PDF) that purports to track American’s television, Internet video, and mobile viewing habits. And the results are a little startling: according to Nielsen, Americans are carving out greater and greater amounts of time for television, averaging over 151 hours per month, which marks an all-time high. In addition, Americans who watch online video vegged-out through another three hours of video per month, and folks who have video capable mobile devices consume another four hours of video per month.

“The American fascination with television and other video content is not easing up, as consumers keep turning to TV, Internet, and mobile at record levels,” said Nielsen vice chair Susan Whiting, in a statement. “It is clear that TV remains the main vehicle for viewing video, although online and mobile platforms are an increasingly important complement to live home-based television.”

Nielsen also reports that programming saved or timeshifted using a DVR is consumed at double the pace of online video: on average, folks with DVRs watch over 7 hours of material a month. However, among younger viewers (age 18 to 24), use of online and time-shifted video runs about even at 5 hours per month.

Nielsen also finds that the traditional workday is “prime time” for Internet video, with 65 percent of online viewers tapping in between 9am and 5pm Monday through Friday. Conversely, just 51 percent of online video viewers stream content between 6am and 8pm on weekends.

Nielsen also finds that mobile video usage has grown to about 11 million Americans, up 9 percent compared to the third quarter of 2008—Nielsen attributes the increase to a growing amount of mobile video content, as well as users streaming Web-based video to mobile devices.