TV Viewing Remains Strong, Despite Increases in Online Video

NEW YORK: U.S. consumers increased their monthly online video usage in Q3 2011 by 7 percent from the same period last year, though traditional in-home TV viewing still dominates, according to Nielsen’s latest State of the Media: U.S. Digital Consumer Report.

The average monthly time clocked watching TV in the home in Q3 was 146 hours and 45 minutes, though this represented an increase of just 0.9 percent on the year-ago period. Online video was up 7.1 percent, though only rang in at 4 hours and 31 minutes. Mobile subscribers watching video on their cell phones showed no gains from the prior year, at 4 hours and 20 minutes.

Nielsen also finds that 76.6 million TV homes in the U.S. are HD capable, representing 67 percent; 58.6 million have digital cable (51 percent), 47.4 million have a DVR (41 percent) and 35.9 million have four or more TV sets (31 percent).

In-home streaming was shown to have increased in the last year, as 33 percent of consumers report that they have streamed a movie or TV show through a subscription service like Netflix or Hulu Plus—18 percent of consumers have paid to download to rent, while 14 percent have paid to download to own.