Categories: Articles

I Like To Watchâ€¦ And So Do You

How is your screen time spent? Online? TV? on your iPhone? The common thought – especially with those engaged in the new media space – is that more and more people are spending less and less time with their TVs.

Wrong… again.

Back in November there was a Blog post titled, TV Viewing Is Down As Internet Usage Continues To Grow? Not Exactly, where I briefly Blogged about a Nielsen study on television (the average American was watching 8 hours and 18 minutes per day). Would you place your money that this usage has gone up or down?

"The average American spends an average of 8.7 hours each day consuming video media, and younger Baby Boomers (ages 45-54) watch the largest amount, 9.5."

That was the result of a research report conducted on behalf of the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence (CRE) by Ball State University’s Center for Media Design (CMD) and Sequent Partners, and reported today in MarketingVox (TV Dominates Americans’ 8.7 Hours of Daily Video Time). Once again, people are watching more television than ever before.

And now, for the big question: how is the online channel doing?

"This finding, according to researchers, dispels anecdotal notions that Americans – especially those in younger age groups – are flocking in droves to free TV on the internet. In reality, the study found that computer video tends to be small, with an average time of two minutes (slightly more than 0.5%) a day and that the amount of exposure time to ads remains significant."

This same report goes on to say that even thought TV video is ranked at #1, computer use has overtaken radio as the #2 media activity (print rounds it out at #4).

The news item has much more information and statistics that are well worth checking out. It’s interesting to see the media landscape shift, and it’s equally interesting to see that within those eight hours of viewing the average consumer is still exposed to over 72 minutes of advertising and promotions.

Do we drink too much of our own Kool-Aid? All of us would have guessed that people were leaving TV for online video and their iPhones in droves. Is this transition going to take longer than we thought, or is it going to be some kind of hybrid usage/model that none of us can even see yet?

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.