• by Wayne Friedman , November 16, 2017

Total media usage continues to rise, gaining more than a half hour a day compared with a year ago -- mostly from smartphone use.

Nielsen’s second-quarter report shows sharply higher increased app/web usage on smartphones -- gaining 43% to 2 hours/27 minutes a day from one hour/43 minutes a day in the second quarter of 2016.

Offsetting this result was a decline daily live TV viewing -- slipping 6% to 3 hours/55 minutes from 4 hours/9 minutes.

Traditional DVR time-shifted TV viewing climbed 7% to 32 minutes from 30 minutes, while tablet app/web usage also rose 6% to 34 minutes a day.

In other media slippage, Internet use on a computer dropped 9% to 52 minutes a day, and AM/FM radio was off 2% (two minutes) to 1 hour/50 minutes a day.

Nielsen says broadcast-only homes were up 13% to 15.7 million homes, compared with 13.6 million a year ago, while broadband-only homes grew 44% to 5.9 million from 4.1 million.

Nearly 60% of TV homes in the U.S. now own at least one internet-enabled device capable of streaming to a TV set.