From its Three Screen Report, The Nielsen Company says Americans have increased their usage of the Internet while watching TV by 35% in the last quarter of 2009 over the year before -- rising to three and a half hours per month.
The rapid rise seemed to take place within the last six months of the year. In June 2009, multitasking was 2:39, and in December 2008 it was 2:36.
Nielsen says nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV -- up 3% from a year before. The survey also notes that the number of people who are multitasking grew almost 5% from the year before to 134 million.
Matt O'Grady, media product leader for The Nielsen Company, says from the report: "The initial fear was that Internet and mobile video and entertainment would slowly cannibalize traditional TV viewing, but the steady trend of increased TV viewership alongside expanded simultaneous usage argues something quite different."
Looking at another part of its Three Screen Report, Nielsen says Americans, on average, now watch about 35 hours of TV and 2 hours of time-shifted TV per week.
Nielsen says DVRs are now in 35% of all U.S. households.
The demographic that uses DVRs the most is the 25-54 viewers, who spend three hours a week using time-shifted viewing. Viewers 65 and older spend the least time -- just over one hour a week.
When it comes to using the Internet, Americans 35-49 have the most usage -- six and a half hours per week. The least usage is among teenagers and children, who come in at 1 hour 21 minutes and 24 minutes, respectively.
Persons 2+ Watching TV and Using the Internet Simultaneously At Least Once Per Month At Home | ||||
| Dec 2009 | June 2009 | Dec 2008 | % Diff Yr to Yr |
% of Persons Using TV/Internet Simultaneously | 59.0% | 56.9% | 57.5% | 2.7% |
Estimated Number of Persons Using TV/Internet Simultaneously (000) | 134,056 | 128,047 | 128,167 | 4.6% |
Time Spent Simultaneously Using TV/Internet Per Person in Hours:Minutes | 3:30 | 2:39 | 2:36 | 34.5% |
Average % of TV time Panelists spent also using the Internet | 3.1% | 2.7% | 2.4% | 29.7% |
Average % of Internet time Panelists spent also using TV | 34.0% | 27.9% | 29.9% | 13.9% |
Source: The Nielsen Company |
Three Screen Media Usage Weekly Time Spent in Hours:Minutes By Age Demographic 4Q 2009 | ||||||||
| K2-11 | T12-17 | A18-24 | A25-34 | A35-49 | A50-64 | A65+ | P2+ |
On Traditional TV | 25:17 | 23:24 | 26:14 | 31:58 | 35:40 | 42:38 | 47:21 | 34:37 |
Watching Time-shifted TV | 1:33 | 1:15 | 1:28 | 2:58 | 2:44 | 2:22 | 1:10 | 2:04 |
Using the Internet | 0:24 | 1:21 | 3:45 | 5:20 | 6:35 | 4:53 | 2:17 | 3:56 |
Watching Video on Internet | 0:04 | 0:15 | 0:39 | 0:35 | 0:33 | 0:17 | 0:06 | 0:22 |
Mobile Subscribers Watching Video on a Mobile Phone | n/a | 0:21 | 0:08 | 0:06 | 0:01 | <0:01 | n/a | 0:04 |
Source: The Nielsen Company |