Nielsen: TV Viewing Rises Amid Media Boom

Consumer consumption of video programming on TV, Internet, mobile devices showed growth on all fronts in May compared with a year ago.

By Robert Marich -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/8/2008 3:49:00 PM

Consumer consumption of video programming on TV, Internet and mobile devices showed growth on all fronts in May compared with a year ago, according to a Nielsen “three-screen” analysis released Tuesday.

TV viewing crept up 4% to 127 hours and 15 minutes in May, time-shifted TV soared 56% to 5:50 and Internet viewing climbed 9% to 26:26, according to Nielsen. That’s monthly viewing by ages two-plus.

There were no year-ago comparisons for two other categories -- watching video on the Internet at 2:19 in May and mobile video at 3:15 -- so percentage changes were not available in comparison with May 2007.

“Commercial television is alive and well -- growing 1% year-over-year -- despite the rapid adoption of other platforms,” Nielsen chief marketing officer John Burbank said in a statement. “Moreover, time-shifting represents less than 5% of total viewing.”

The analysis concluded that 65% of U.S. TV homes received digital cable or satellite with 160 TV channels in May. Also, 25% of all U.S. TV homes have digital-video recorders and 35% have video-on-demand.

Nielsen estimated that 220 million Americans have Internet access at home or work and 73% -- or 162 million -- went online in May.

Viewing video on cellular phones and other mobile devices is small but fast-growing. “While the number of mobile-video users is relatively small at about 4 million, the video usage these early adopters report is impressive, perhaps due to ‘always available’ mobile devices,” Burbank said. “It is an early indicator of how this technology is becoming more commonplace among mobile users.”

The three-screen report measures activity from three different sources: Nielsen’s National TV panel of 14,000 households, a separate Internet panel and a quarterly survey of 2,000 mobile-video users.