Viewers keep TVs tuned on

The amount of time U.S. households keep their televisions turned on remains equal to the typical workday.

The Nielsen Company reported Wednesday that television tuning during the 2006-2007 television year was 8 hours and 14 minutes per day, the same amount of time as during the 2005-2006 season, maintaining the record.

Ten years ago, TVs were on an average of 7 hour, 12 minutes each day.

The New York-based company said actual daily viewership was virtually unchanged. The average amount of television watched by individual viewers during the same period was 4 hours and 34 minutes, down 1 minute from the previous year.

A decade ago, the figure was 3 hours, 56 minutes per day.

More and more viewers are also watching programs at their convenience, that is, based on the number of homes with Digital Video Recorders. That figure has grown steadily over the past several years with Nielsen's National People Meter sample showing 20.5 percent of households having the device, up from 17.2 percent in May 2007. When Nielsen began measuring DVR estimates in its samples in January 2006, penetration was estimated to be approximately 8 percent of households.

Source: BizJournals, 10/17/07