US TV viewership climbed again last season to a record household average of eight hours, 11 minutes a day, Nielsen Media Research reported on Thursday, challenging perceptions that Americans are watching less than they once did.
The all-time high viewing level posted for the 2004-05 television season, which ended earlier this month, was up nearly 3 percent from the previous year and 12.5 percent from a decade ago, the TV ratings service said.
Moreover, Nielsen said the average individual watched four hours and 32 minutes of TV last season, the highest level in 15 years. The figures include in-home viewing levels for broadcast, cable, and satellite TV during all parts of the day.
Nielsen and other industry experts attributed the upward trend to the growing number of TV sets in most homes and an explosion in the number of available channels, a phenomenon that creates more choices for viewers while making it harder for any one network to attract an audience.
According to Nielsen, the average U.S. home now receives more than 100 channels of programming.
This fragmentation of the audience, along with the rising popularity of video games, the Internet, and DVDs, has helped feed the widely held notion that TV viewing has been on the decline.
"Programmers and people who own networks are having to work a lot harder to find a consistent audience," said Ben Grossman, associate editor for industry publication Broadcasting & Cable.
The broadcasters have voiced particular concern in recent years that young viewers are being drawn away from TV to other forms of entertainment, a trend that could siphon advertising dollars away to competing media.
But Nielsen's study supports the idea that while the TV viewership pie is being cut up into ever smaller pieces, the overall size of the pie is growing.
"This basically challenges the perception out there that people are abandoning television or going to the Internet or doing other things and taking away from television viewing activity," said David Poltrack, the head of ratings research for the CBS network. "The pervasiveness of the medium is not being eroded."
Poltrack noted that Nielsen's figures do not include TV viewing in offices, restaurants, airports, and other places outside the home, which he said a recent Arbitron study in Houston showed was higher than previously believed.
The welcome news from Nielsen comes as many observers see a prime-time landscape reinvigorated by a new wave of off-beat, formula-breaking shows sparked by the surprise success last season of ABC hits Lost and Desperate Housewives.
Nielsen's numbers suggest that the buzz factor surrounding the arrival of new fall shows is translating into bigger audiences.
Summer 2005 viewing was up slightly from a year ago, when audiences were buoyed by the Olympics, and the first week of the new 2005-06 season was considerably higher than premiere week last year, Nielsen said.
Nielsen uses technology and surveys to measure what individuals and their families, or households, watch.
Comments (7)
I love TV. I'm a homebody anyway, and always have been. Sounds like I'm not alone.
What else are people going to do? They can't afford the gas to drive anywhere exotic. The dollar has fallen so far against the euro that they can't afford to go to Europe. And if you go to cafes or other places large groups of people gather, you risk being blown up by terrorists. Drunk driving, moreover, is exploding through the roof, as illegal aliens from every country on the globe drive freely on American roads. Given all that, who in their right mind would leave home? TV sounds like the perfect place of refuge and safety--unless you're hit by a hurricane, volcano, or earthquake.
Their surveys you can't trust, but those monitors/trackers they put on Nielson viewer TV's are more accurate, but whos to say they really represent most of US population? Wouldn't you be more inclined to watch TV or not change the channel when you know you have a device on your TV that stands for at least a thousand other Americans watching TV, thus what you do and just a few hundred others could mean the make or break of a show? However on that note, I would believe more people are watching, as there are many hit shows on.
No it does not challenge the perception that people are abandoning TV. It proves that there is supply and demand, and when people demand quality TV, they will get it, or do something else. TV quality is finaly going up with the downfall of Reality TV. <br />
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A factor even MORE influential than quality of programing, is price of travel. Gas prices are high, so people are going out less. It just costs too much to take a trip, so they watch TV instead.
The only thing i hate about tv are those annyong pointless advertisements. If they could try and keep the advertisements small maybe i would watch more tv, for example, only show adverts before and after tv programmes and other programmes, and no adverts during programmes. That would be great.
You need to keep movies clean. I am tired of blood, guts, and cussing. You would have a lot more viewers. I love 24, Prison Break but once I start to like something they take it off. Like North Shore. Alias has been too way out there and not even real. But I watch it any way. If Micheal dies I will stop watching the show. Sydney should because she will leave the show any way. It will make it with out her. Can't stand all the 1/2 hour comedy shows. Never could.
To true.