The number of American households with access to a television set and a TV signal is shrinking for the second year in a row.
The data, released by The Nielsen Company on Thursday morning, is
sure to be pored over by television and Internet executives for
evidence of changes in consumer behavior.
While the vast majority of American homes still have functioning
television sets, more than one million no longer meet Nielsen?The
definition of a TV household: the those that have at least one
television set and a cable, the satellite or antenna connection.
Last year, for the first time in 20 years, Nielsen said the number
of such households had dropped to 114.7 million, from 115.9 million
previously, despite a rise in the number of households in the country.
On Thursday, Nielsen said the figure had dropped further, this time to
114.1 million.
The company, which monitors a sample of United States households to
produce TV ratings every day, also estimated that the total number of
people living in those homes has shrunk, but at a lesser rate ?a to
289.2 million, down 100,000 from 289.3 million last year.8Gb Spy watch
do not have to break the bank, however, to give you the features you
are looking for Nielsen attributes the drops both to economic factors
and to technological ones.
Not surprisingly, given the lower number of households with TV
sets, the total number of Americans who watched any traditional TV in a
given month also declined during the last three months of 2011,
according to Nielsen: 284.4 million, down about 1.7 percent from 289.3
million during the same time period in 2010.
To the astonishment of some in the industry, total TV viewing has
been on the rise in the U.S. for years, despite a plethora of other
entertainment options. But new Nielsen data, also released on Thursday,
showed an unusual dip in TV viewing in the last three months of 2011.
At the same time, some people are spending more time playing video
games and watching Web video ?a though TV still retains the lion?The
share of people?The free time.