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Industry Trends

59% of Americans Use TV And Internet Together

By March 24, 2010July 30th, 2023One Comment

A recent report from Nielsen Company has found that 35% more Americans now access the Internet while watching TV than a year ago.

Usage patterns have changed considerably compared to what they were just one year ago. In the last quarter of 2008, Nielsen found that users accessed the Internet while watching TV for almost two and a half hours every month, and almost 57.5% of TV viewers used the Internet and television simultaneously at least once a month.

One year later, in the last quarter of 2009, Nielsen found that the amount of time U.S. users spent on the Internet while watching TV had grown to three and a half hours every month, and almost 60% of TV viewers used the Internet and television simultaneously at least once a month.

Fears that TV viewing would reduce drastically due to the growing popularity of the Internet and mobile videos seem to have been unfounded. TV viewing has actually grown steadily along with the Internet. One of the reasons for this could be access to DVRs, which allow users to watch their favourite TV programmes at their convenience.

DVR systems are now found in 35% of all American homes and are growing in popularity. Viewers between the ages of 25 and 34 watch time shifted TV for about three and a half hours every week while those over 65 years of age do so for just over an hour.

Online video usage has also gone up by 16% in the last year, and surprisingly, almost 44% of online video viewing is done at work.

The number of active mobile video watchers has also gone up from 11.2 million to 17.6 million, which is a rise of 57% between the last quarter of 2008 and the last quarter of 2009.