The average American today has more ways to watch video, whenever, however and wherever they choose. In the Cross-Platform Report, US research firm Nielsen finds that the resounding trend is this: Americans are spending more time watching video content on traditional TVs, mobile devices and the internet than ever before.
Overall TV viewership increased 22 minutes per month per person over last year, remaining the dominant source of video content for all demographics. In addition, Nielsen data shows that consumers are willing to pay for high-quality TV content, with broadcast-only homes less than a tenth of US TV households.
Though still accounting for just a handful of hours per month, mobile video viewing continues to see marked gains, increasing 41% over the last year and more than 100% since 2009.
Timeshifted TV continues to grow, both in the penetration of DVR devices in the home and the time spent.
Internet video streaming also saw increases in time spent; this behavior is the highest among a younger and diverse subset of the population.
More details are available to download in the complete Cross-Platform Report.
Until the autumn of 2010, Nielsen data consistently indicated that the heaviest media consumers are so across all platforms. A subset of consumers from television and internet homes has now emerged that defies that notion, with the lightest traditional television users streaming significantly more Internet video, and the heaviest streamers under-indexing for traditional TV viewership.
This behaviour is led by those ages 18-34. The group of consumers exhibiting this behaviour is significant but small. More than a third of the TV/internet population is not streaming, whereas less than 1% are not watching TV.