Roughly half (48%) of Americans now watch video online, compared to 10% for mobile and 97% for traditional TV, according to the latest findings of Nielsen State of the Media Q2 report.
Mobile subscribers watching video on their phone increased approximately 36% since Q2 2010, and watching video on the internet continued to flourish. Interestingly, the new screens do not impact the time spent viewing traditional television, which saw an increase of 2 hours 43 minutes per month.
“Regardless of the way audiences tune in, consumers now expect their entertainment content wherever, whenever and however they want it,” states Nielsen in the report.
The rise in time shifted video consumption is also matched by an increase in video game console usage, as many game consoles have become the means to stream video straight to the TV. Game console penetration in TV homes grew nearly 4% over Q2 2010, with average daily time spent per home on any game console increasing by 14%.
Time shifting on a regular TV remains the standard. Americans spend more than quadruple the time per week watching time shifted content on a TV (via PVR, video on demand or DVD playback) as they do online video. Over the past two years, since Q2 2009, time shifted TV viewing jumped 31% with near-constant growth; potentially augmented by expanded video on demand capabilities increasingly offered by cable or satellite platforms.
Since Q2 2010, time shifted TV viewing rose 11% among all TV homes. Interestingly, this is the result of increased PVR penetration, not an increase in time spent by PVR households. The number of homes with a PVR increased nearly 13% since last year, with 39% of TV households now home to the technology.
Americans 25-64 spend the most time watching time shifted content but Americans 65+ and kids 2-11 are catching up, with heightened growth in time spent in recent quarters. Both groups experienced double-digit growth in time spent over last year, while those middle demographics remained relatively the same. White consumers are the most likely to have a PVR and, compared to all PVR households, time shift more content than other ethnicities.
Subscription shifts underscore that Americans are putting a new emphasis on broadband. Nearly three-fourths (72%) of US TV homes pay for both broadband Internet and a cable-plus TV subscription (cable, satellite or IPTV). In fact, households with both cable-plus and broadband saw year-over-year growth of roughly 7%.
Though the number of households paying for just cable-plus and going without broadband remains significantly higher than households with broadcast only and broadband—18% compared to 5% —broadcast-only/broadband households are on the rise while cable-plus/no internet households are declining.
Although TV viewing remains an almost universal activity, a pattern first reported in Q1 2011 = of heaviest at-home streamers consuming slightly less TV and lightest TV users being the heaviest streamers – continues. Streaming is still a highly concentrated behavior, with 83 % of all streaming taking place among the top 20% of consumers who stream. Alternatively, television usage continues to have a broader distribution across the quintiles (with just 48% of TV watched by the top 20%).
