January 25, 2023
Watching TV Together? Not For Many Viewers
- by Wayne Friedman , February 20, 2015
Looking for anyone watching TV in the living room these days? You may need to look elsewhere. With lots of different TV screens and devices out and about, there are many ways to access video -- especially when it comes to younger TV consumers. And that means portability.
For example, a recent survey says 45% of viewers watch TV/video programming in a different room from other people when at home, according to Videology, a digital video and TV advertising technology company.
When it comes to growing devices, 18% have eight or more screens to watch TV/video at home -- with 49% saying they use their laptop as their primary device to watch TV/video at home.
Bedroom viewing, long viewed second to the living room, still commands attention. Nearly 30% say “lying in bed” is the ideal way to watch TV/video at home.
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Looking more specifically at just those new digital devices, 60% watch TV/video from that technology in their beds; 14% watch TV/video on a device in the bathroom.
While individual preferences for TV/video viewing are growing, the survey says watching TV with a least another person in the room is still high on the list -- 34% of people report doing this.
Videology says this 12-question survey was conducted in November 2014 from 2,066 U.S. respondents.
The rise of "solitary" viewing, is one of the important trends that is often overlooked. Now, almost every household member has his or her own set----sometimes several of them in different locations. This means that most viewers can decide what shows to watch based solely on their own tastes---- a far cry from the "family consensus" viewing that prevailed into the 1970s when many homes still had only one working receiver.Our latest estimate, as published in "TV Dimensions 2015", is that an average person ( aged 2+ ) watches more than 20 hours of "linear" TV per week all by themselves. This represents roughly 63% of total time spent with the medium, excluding various digital venues, where solitary viewing is probably more common.