Nielsen: HD in two thirds US homes
June 16, 2011
The new Cross Platform Report from Nielsen has found that HDTVs are now available 75.5 million homes, about two thirds of all US homes, a 20 per cent rise over last year, and that video viewing has increased across all platforms.
The report found that traditional TV viewing saw a 22 minute monthly increase between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of this year, with online video seeing a one hour and 10 minute bounce, mobile video growing by 43 minutes and time shifted viewing increasing by one hour and 10 minutes.
But the report also noted that those people who spend the most time watching online video have the lowest consumption of traditional media. The heaviest online video users, who averaged 18.8 minutes of viewing streaming online video per day, also spent the least amount of time with traditional TV, about 272 minutes.
Likewise, the most infrequent users of online video, a group that averaged only 0.1 of a minute of online video viewing, were also the heaviest traditional TV viewers, with 290 minutes per day.
The study showed a very slight 17,000 increase in the number of homes that got their TV signals only over the air to 11,193,000 and a decline in cable subscribers from 64,951,000 in the first quarter of 2010 to 62,651,000.
Overall, however, multichannel homes increased to 103,870,000 in the first quarter of 2010 to 104,602,000 in the first quarter of 2011, thanks to growth in satellite and telco homes, indicating that reports of the dangers of cord cutting remain overblown.
Traditional TV viewing continues to account for by far the largest amount of video consumption, at 158 hours and 47 minutes versus only 4 hours and 33 minutes for watching video on the Internet.
The heaviest users of online video were those aged 18 to 24, with seven hours and 41 minutes a day, followed by those aged 25-34, who spent six hours and 54 minutes.
Men were more likely than women to view online video regardless of age group.