TV watching remains at record levels
October 19, 2007
The Nielsen Company has reported that television watching in the US during the 2006-2007 television year (18 September 2006 to 23 September 2007) remained at the record levels set the previous year. The number of homes with Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) more than doubled.
According to Nielsen the total average time a household had a TV set on in during the 2006-2007 television year was 8 hours and 14 minutes per day, the same amount of time as during the 2005-2006 season. The average amount of television watched by individual viewers during the 2006-07 television year dipped by 1 minute per day to 4 hours and 34 minutes.
The number of households with Digital Video Recorders has grown steadily over the past several years, and now stands at 20.5 per cent of Nielsen's National People Meter sample. This is up from 17.2 per cent in May 2007. When Nielsen began including households with DVRs in its samples in January 2006, DVR penetration was estimated to be approximately 8 per cent of households.
“Television clearly remains a very important part of daily life in the United States,” noted Patricia McDonough, Senior Vice President of Planning Policy & Analysis at Nielsen Media Research. “There are numerous screens competing for time and attention as well as consumer devices providing new ways for viewers to watch their favourite shows. Regardless, these trends demonstrate that tuning to traditional television remains strong.”