Time-Shifted TV Viewing Dips For Millennials, Teens

Traditional TV time-shifted viewing is finally seeing some declines among younger TV viewers.

Nielsen says DVR/time-shifted viewing time is now dropping for viewers 18 to 34 and 12- to-17-year-old viewers for the five-month period from October 2014 through February 2015 versus the same period a year ago.

TV viewers 18-34 are now time-shifting -- in total day usage -- around 24 minutes per day, down from 25 minutes in the period from October 2013 to February 2014. Younger TV viewers 12-17  are now watching about 16 minutes, down from 17 minutes a year ago.

In the previous-year period, October 2013 to February 2014, both those younger TV viewing groups -- 18-34 and 12-17 -- still showed growth over the year before.

Looking at the most recent five-month period, other older TV viewing groups’ DVR viewing continues to climb -- albeit at a slower rate, according to Nielsen. Those 50-64 viewers and 35-49 viewers are watching DVR-time-shifted viewing at around 38 minutes a day. Those 65+ are watching about 32 minutes a day.

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Nielsen notes that time-shifted viewing among kids 2-11 is still showing some growth with DVR time-shifting -- around 22 minutes a day.

Looking at older “time-shifting” TV technology -- that of DVD usage -- has showed declines across many demographic groups. Kids 2-11 continue to have the highest DVD viewing -- around 17 minutes a day on average from October 2014 to February 2015.

1 comment about "Time-Shifted TV Viewing Dips For Millennials, Teens ".
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  1. Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, April 27, 2015 at 9:10 a.m.

    Young people watch a growing amount of programming on YouTube and other streaming sites, so it's a move toward on-demand and not necessarily a return to linear TV, as this article seems to suggest (by citing a decline in time-shifting).  That is, there are more than two ways to watch TV. It's not just live and time-shifted.

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