TV Still Top Medium In Usage, Reach
- by Wayne Friedman , June 23, 2015
Little surprise from Nielsen’s first look at weekly usage and reach of media devices and platforms: TV is still way ahead -- especially in terms of competing video platforms. Looking specifically at video, TV has a more commanding lead in terms of usage: 36 hours and 7 minutes for TV; 1 hour and 30 minutes for video on a PC; 13 minutes of watching video on smartphone; and 11 minutes for video on a tablet.
With regard to reach, TV is at 87.2%, with video on smartphone at 36.9%, video for PC at 36%, and tablet video at 17.5%.
For overall media usage, adults spend just over 36 weekly hours compared to 12:58 for radio, 5:34 on a PC, 7:17 on a smartphone, and 3:34 on a tablet.
Among even younger media consumers ages 18-34, TV continues to dominate at 21 hours and 55 minutes for TV, 11:05 for radio, 9:53 for smartphones, 5:04 for PC, and 3:43 for tablets.
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Radio and traditional television still have the largest reach of any of the platforms, with radio reaching nearly 223 million adult listeners weekly and television reaches over 209 million adult viewers — 93% and 87% of all U.S. adults, respectively.
On a daily usage basis, TV is at 447 minutes; radio,162 minutes; PC, 144 minutes; smartphone, 107 minutes; and. tablet 126 minutes.
With regard to showing its first "true apple-to-apples" comparison, Dounia Turrill, SVP of insights, Nielsen, says: “By doing so, we have given the industry an impartial look not just on how many consumers are connecting with devices and platforms but how much and for how long.”
Two things stand out in the actual report. First, the average weekly reach of "linear" or "traditional" TV, was only 87% of all adults and even lower ( 76% ) among those Aged 18-34. While this does not mean that the sky is falling, it is an indication of the attrition caused by Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, etc. among certain sectors of the adult population. In times past, the figure for 18-34s would probably have been 10 points higher.
Second, Nielsen broke down the degree of social network activity for the total adult population and reported that, in an average week, the average adult devoted about 4.7 hours to such activities with roughly half of this via smartphones and the remainder split between PCs and tablets. While this pales in comparison to the figures for "linear TV" ( 36 hours per adult ), it is nothing to sneeze at.