• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 21, 2009

Despite the rapid expansion of alternative media options, Americans continue to watch more, not less TV, according to an annual benchmark report from Nielsen Co. But they are spending that increased viewing time watching a relatively small percentage of the TV channels available to them - less than 14% on average. 

The findings, which come from Nielsen's just-released "Television Audience 2008" report, reveals that the average U.S. TV household spent 58 hours and 27 minutes per week tuned to television, up 20 minutes from 57 hours and 47 minutes in 2007. The average represents and increase of about 10 hours per week since 1990, and nearly 15 hours per week since 1975, the first year for which data is reported in the study.

While that trend is a testament to the holding power of television amid an onslaught of new media options - especially the Internet - American TV households also appear to be watching relatively fewer of the TV channels that are available to them.

The number of channels receivable by the average U.S. household jumped to 130.1 in 2008, 11.5 more than the 2007 average. But the average number actually "tuned" to, according to Nielsen's definitions, was only 17.8, a slight increase from the 2007 average of 16.0.

That means the typical American household watches only 13.7% of the TV channels available to them, about the same percentage as 2007 (13.5%), and a downward trend from the average earlier on this decade (see table below).

The findings are interesting for the greater media universe, because the increasing abundance of TV channel options is a microcosm for the expanding array of choices available to the average American consumer, and goes to prove that media fragmentation has its limits. Given an expanding array of options, people still gravitate to a relatively finite set of choices.