Watching

Posted by Rob Walker on July 9, 2008
Posted Under: Consumer Behavior,Entertainment

The average American spent 127 hours of time with TV in May, up from 121 hours in May 2007.

That’s from an NYT story today about a Nielsen survey.

Can that be right? How do we do it? How can we be watching more TV?

The story says Nielsen found that 119 million Americans watched video online, spending an average of 2 hours and 19 minutes doing so in May. Not only that, an estimated 4.4 million Americans have video-ready mobile phones, and supposedly these people watch 3 hours and 15 minutes a month watching video on those phones.

What’s surprising to me at least isn’t the Web or mobile-phone figures, but that according to this study at least, somehow those numbers aren’t driving down the TV number.

I’m always at least a little skeptical of these things. But still — what does this mean for that “cognitive surplus” I’ve been hearing about?

Further diversion may be found at MKTG Tumblr, and the Consumed Facebook page.

Reader Comments

One possibility – the fact that TV networks are finally kind of “getting” the Web and making material very available online might be driving viewers back to the boob tube, or diverting them there as just one more channel of entertainment. Dunno. Maybe just good stuff on?

#1 
Written By jkd on July 9th, 2008 @ 4:24 pm

Maybe it’s the average Nielsen-people-meter-owning household?

#2 
Written By Verbal on July 9th, 2008 @ 6:34 pm

Verbal, yes, I’m always a little unsure about Nielsen data. I recently got invited to be a Nielsen household. I’ve been thinking about doing it … though it’ll probably be more of a hassle than a learning experience.

jkd, maybe so on the first guess, i kinda doubt the second!

#3 
Written By Rob Walker on July 10th, 2008 @ 8:55 am