Nielsen: Live TV Viewing in the U.S. Down in Q1

Live TV viewing dropped by 10 minutes in the first quarter of the year to 4 hours, 21 minutes (4:21) per day per person among adults, according to Nielsen’s Q1 Total Audience Report.

Time spent with DVR/time-shifted TV was at 0:34, up 1 minute from 2016’s Q1. Adults’ usage of a multimedia device increased to 1 hour, an upward trend from 2015’s 0:48 and 2016’s 0:58. The largest gain was in the average time spent per day using apps/the web on a smartphone, which went up to 2 hours and 19 minutes from the year-ago’s 1:39.

According to Nielsen, the number of pay-TV subscribers fell 1.4 percent to 97.8 million households. The number of broadcast-only homes rose to 15.2 million from 13.3 million, while the number of broadband-only homes rose to 5.3 million from 3.9 million. Homes subscribing to a VOD service rose from 50 percent to 57 percent.