Via Nielsen Wire:

For the 2009-2010 broadcast season Nielsen estimates that the total number of television households within the U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii) will be 114.9 million. This is an increase of 400,000 homes from last year and the smallest increase in the last 10 years. Nielsen also estimates that the number of Persons age 2 and above (P2+) in U.S. television households will increase slightly to 292 million:

Broadcast Season Universe Estimates
Season	Homes in Millions
2009-2010	114.9
2008-2009	114.5
2007-2008	112.8
2006-2007	111.4
2005-2006	110.2
2004-2005	109.6
2003-2004	108.4
2002-2003	106.7
2001-2002	105.5
2000-2001	102.2

Source: The Nielsen Company

read on for local market estimates

In another in a series of nuggets from the latest Nielsen Television Audience Report is this chart that shows all sorts of TV related adoption trends (click for a larger copy).

Read the full story

We seem to have constant discussions underway in our comments about how TV watching is doomed, a relic, being overwhelmed by the internet, DVDs, computer games, the next latest and greatest thing. Trouble is, and we’ve covered this many times, it’s just not true.

Read the full story

I spoke with Michael Starr at the NY Post today about my earlier item on the fact that there are now more TV sets in the US than there are people.

He asked me what I thought had caused that to happen. In the moment, I didn’t have anything worked out nicely to support my guess, but as Robert knows I am often wrong, but never in doubt. I guessed it was the twin trends of declining household size (for a variety of reasons), combined with increasing television ownership, likely because the inflation adjusted cost of the average television set has gone down.

After I was off the call, I found the numbers and put together this chart. Lucky for me the trends looked like I hoped they would. As it turns out, we crossed the “more TVs than people” threshold in 2005.

Read the full story

Interesting to see that the TV sets/home has risen 18% since 2000, and there’s now more TV sets in the United States than people.

New findings from Nielsen’s Television Audience Report show that in 2009 the average American home had 2.86 TV sets, which is roughly 18% higher than in 2000 (2.43 sets per home), and 43% higher than in 1990 (2.0 sets). In addition, there continue to be more TVs per home than people – in 2009 the average U.S. home had only 2.5 people vs 2.86 television sets.

This year about 54% of homes in the U.S. had more than 3 or more television sets, 28% had 2 television sets and only 18% had 1 television set.

Other Key Stats

There are 114.5 million TV homes in the U.S. in 2009

• 38% of U.S. TV homes have digital cable.
• 88% have a DVD player, while VCR fell to 72%.
• 82% of homes have more than 1 television set.
• 11% of U.S. TV homes only have the capability to receive TV reception “over the air”. These homes have neither cable nor ADS.

via Nielsen Wire.

Download the entire Nielsen report here.

The gap between households owning HD sets (46.3%) and actually receiving HD programming (35.9%) isn’t new, and it has shrunk a bit since 2008, but it still is somewhat surprising to me.

Do that many people buy HD sets well in advance of getting HD programming, or are that many people just unaware of whether they are actually receiving HD programming?

From TVB.com:

TV Basics: HD TV Stats While 46.3% of television households have HD capable sets, only 35.9% are receiving HD programming.

High Definition TV (HDTV) HD Status HD HD HD Display Total U.S. Receivable (1) Capable (2) Capable (3) Jul-07 10.1% 12.2% 18.9% Aug-07 10.6% 13.0% 19.9% Sep-07 11.4% 13.8% 21.0% Oct-07 12.2% 14.8% 22.5% Nov-07 12.9% 15.7% 23.6% Dec-07 13.6% 16.8% 24.9% Jan-08 14.5% 18.3% 26.6% Feb-08 15.4% 19.5% 28.1% Mar-08 16.3% 20.6% 29.3% Apr-08 17.2% 21.8% 30.6% May-08 18.3% 22.9% 31.9% Jun-08 18.8% 23.6% 32.8% Jul-08 19.8% 24.8% 34.0% Aug-08 20.5% 25.9% 34.9% Sep-08 21.2% 26.9% 35.9% Oct-08 22.4% 28.3% 37.2% Nov-08 23.3% 29.3% 38.2% Dec-08 24.5% 30.4% 39.3% Jan-09 27.3% 32.2% 40.9% Feb-09 29.2% 33.8% 42.1% Mar-09 31.5% 35.0% 43.3% Apr-09 32.7% 36.2% 44.3% May-09 34.1% 37.5% 45.4% Jun-09 35.9% 38.4% 46.3% (1) HD Receivable: A home that is equipped with an HD television and HD Tuner and receives at least one HD network or station. (2) HD Capable: A home that is equipped with an HD television and HD Tuner capable of receiving signals in HD. (3) HD Display Capable: A home that is equipped with an HD television that is capable of displaying HD content. Source: The Nielsen Company June ’09 HD Television Household Estimates

A new study out today from Nielsen contradicts our many commenters of the “nobody under XX watches TV anymore anyway” persuasion.

Teens overall TV use has been growing slowly (up 6% in the last 5 years). But within that trend, broadcast TV use has been on the decline, and cable TV use has been on the increase. Those are the same overall trends as the entire US population.

DVR playback is growing, but is still only a very small part of overall TV use. Teen percentage of DVR playback compared to overall TV viewing is lower than for the population as a whole.

Here’s the key chart:

Key [TV] Takeaways

• Teens are NOT abandoning TV for new media: In fact, they watch more TV than ever, up 6% over the past five years in the U.S.
• Teens love the Internet … but spend far less time browsing than adults: Teens spend 11 hours and 32 minutes per month online. Far below the average of 29 hours and 15 minutes.
• Teens watch less online video than most adults, but the ads are highly engaging to them: Teens spend 35% less time watching online video than adults 25-34, but recall ads better when watching TV shows online than they do on television.
• Teens’ favorite TV shows, top websites and genre preferences across media are mostly the same as their parents: For U.S. teens, American Idol was the top show in 2008, Google the top website and general dramas are a preferred TV genre for teens around the world.

via Nielsen Wire.

When Tiger Woods Is In Contention, TV Ratings Soar

The spike in 2008 was driven by Tiger Woods’ exciting tie on the final hole of regulation and then 18 hole playoff victory, with a broken leg. How high could TV ratings go this year?

Full 1971-2008 US Open Golf TV Ratings Detail:

Read the full story