Americans spend more time watching TV, online and using mobile

Once upon a time it was thought that the Internet would eat away at television viewing. A new report from Nielsen shows that this isn’t the case and that Americans are actually watching more television than they were a year ago.

by Helen Leggatt

It’s not just television viewing that’s up. Americans are spending more time online and even managing to find time to watch some mobile video as well. Such are the findings of Nielsen’s recent “Three Screen Report”.

The report (.pdf) found that television viewing has risen 4% compared to last year, up from 121 hours in May, 2007 to 127 hours in May this year. Use of the Internet has also risen 9% and is now used, on average, for 26 hours a month compared with 24 hours last May.

What has changed is the way in which some media are being consumed. For example, timeshifting has increased massively in popularity, rising 56% from last May. The process, which generally involves the skipping of advertising breaks, still remains a small percentage of total television watching time but the rise is significant nonetheless.

So, it appears the death of television has a lot more episodes to play out before it becomes a reality.