Commentary

Household Media Review

Acccording to new data from The Nielsen Company, State of the Media 2010, the average US household has 2.5 TV sets, with 1.9 standard definition TVs and 0.6 high-definition TVs. Furthermore, Nielsen data shows that HDTV households have more sets than the national average. 31% of Americans own four or more TVs.

Average Number of TV Sets Per U.S. Household

 

All Sets

Standard Definition

High Definition

Total US

2.5

2.6

0.9

SD homes

2.1

2.1

 

HD Homes

2.7

1.2

1.5

Source: the Nielsen Company, January 2011

The average American watches 35.6 hours of TV week, or close to the equivalent of a full-time job. Looking at age demographics, Americans older than 65 watch an average of 48.9 hours of TV each week. In contrast, Americans age 2-11 watch an average of 25.8 hours of TV per week.

TV Watched

Age group

Hours Watched/Week

Adults over 65

48.9

Average Americans

35.6

Kids 2-11

25.8

Source: the Nielsen Company, January 2011

The percentage of consumers with broadband internet access but no cable TV remained fairly consistent between January 2008 (3.2%) and January 2010 (3.9%). Meanwhile, the percentage of consumers with both broadband internet access and cable TV grew about 21%, from 54.8% to 66.3%. This suggests few consumers are attempting to splice their cable broadband internet access to obtain free cable TV

Broadband & Cable Ownership (% of Population)

 

% of Population

Installed

Jan 2008

Jan 2009

Jan2010

Broadband only

3.2

3.9

3.9

Cable & Broadband

54.8

61.6

66.3

Source: the Nielsen Company, January 2011

 

Television Purchase Plans (In Next 12 Months; North America)

Intent

% of Respondents

Definitely will purchase

3%

Probably will purchase

3

Might of might not

16

Probably won't

17

Definitely won't

59

Source: the Nielsen Company, January 2011

Additional TV Findings

  • 115.9 million US homes have at least one TV.
  • 104.7 million US homes are satellite and/or cable TV-ready.
  • 100.2 million US homes have a DVD player.
  • 70.6 million US homes have a VCR.
  • 65 million US TVs are HD-compatible.
  • 55.6 million US homes have digital cable.
  • 43.1 million US homes have a DVR.
  • 34.7 million US homes have satellite TV.

Other recent Nielsen data indicates that comparing the demographic household makeup of prime-time US TV viewers, households which delay the viewing of TV shows with a DVR are more likely to be wealthy.

For example, 30% of households engaging in DVR playback have an annual income of $100,000 or more, compared to about 25% of DVR households watching a prime-time show live and only 15% of all households watching live TV. Conversely, 22% of all live TV households have an annual income of less than $25,000.

Finally, considering emerging media devices owned and planned purchases, computers with high speed internet occupy the major penetration among "connected consumers" in the US.

Emerging Media Devices (Ownership and Purchase Intent; % of Connected Consumers)

Device

% Owning

% Definitely/Probably will Buy

Computer with HS Internet

75%

5%

HDTV

46

10

DVR

35

9

Handheld multimedia device

20

5

TV with internet connection

14

7

Devices that connect TV to internet

10

7

Netbooks

9

6

EBook readers

5

7

Tablets

<1

6

3D TV

<1

6

Source: the Nielsen Company, January 2011

For additional details and data from Nielsen, please visit here.

1 comment about "Household Media Review".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Jeffrey Clark, January 24, 2011 at 6:48 p.m.

    Please proofread, as I noticed several errors. Total TV/HH is made up of 1.9 SDTV and 0.6 HDTV. Both the first paragraph and first table misstate this. Also, the 4th table is in reference to 3D TV purchase intent, not TV in general. That is a big difference!

Next story loading loading..