Fewer people in the US are watching TV

5 Dec 2014

TV viewership in the US is on the decline as the public spends more time surfing the web and watching video-streaming services than before.

That’s according to a new report by global information and measurement company Nielsen which has pointed to a growing number of households not using a TV at all as contributing to the decline.

Approximately 2.6m US households don’t subscribe to a TV service provider or pick up a broadcast signal, which is more than double the figure that were broadband only last year.

As reported by Time, on-demand services are on the rise with 40pc of households now subscribing to firms like Netflix or Amazon’s Prime Instant Video. Viewing of online videos have increased by about 4 hours per month year-over-year to 10 hours and 42 minutes.

“The growing penetration of new devices and the popularity of subscription based streaming services, time-shifted and over-the-top viewing – as well as cord-cutting and cord shaving – are fundamentally changing the TV industry,” says Nielson SVP Dounia Turrill in a statement.

 

In October Netflix revealed that its total third-quarter revenues amounted to US$1.22bn, compared to US$884m in the year-ago quarter. However, despite adding 1m new US subscriptions, the company did not meet its original forecast.

Broken television image via Shutterstock

Dean Van Nguyen was a contributor to Silicon Republic

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