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.