Members of the baby boom generation recall childhood days when the entire family gathered close together to watch one of three choices on television for the evening. This activity wasn’t so much about family closeness as having only one television set in the home.

Fast forward a few decades and huge changes have affected the way Americans view TV. Instead of the single set, the average U.S. home now has 2.6 television sets and is no longer limited to whatever the major broadcast networks are showing. Nor is television viewing even limited to television. Now, hundreds of television networks broadcast programming around the clock with technological advances like the Internet, DVR and video on demand, which allow consumers to view programming at their leisure.

While these innovations have offered unprecedented choices and flexibility for many viewers, it has also lead to confusion and frustration among advertisers trying to reach them. Smart advertisers must not only plan their media buy around hundreds of cable networks reaching ever smaller niche markets, but must now understand how consumers ‘time shift’ programming and even how viewers are shifting their viewing between the traditional TV set and new online and mobile technologies.

To help understand this new viewing environment, Nielsen Media Research has recently released the first major study providing a firsthand look at how consumers use their ‘three screens’. These three screens represent the traditional television set, the personal computer using the Internet and mobile phones connected to the Internet.

Here are some of the study’s findings:

Television Viewing
Americans still want their TV: Americans are watching more traditional television than ever, but with 65% of homes accessing digital programming and nearly 160 different channels.

But how they watch is changing: 25% and 35% of U.S. homes have DVR and Video on Demand respectively. With DVR playback representing about 5% of total viewing and 14% of all TV primetime viewing in playback (DVR households, as of May 2008), only about half of the commercial content was viewed when programming was played back within 3 days.

How they watch differs by age: About a third of TV’s audience is age 55 or older, compared to only 22% of the Internet audience and 7% using mobile phones to view videos. Adults 25 to 34 watch the most time-shifted television, followed by 35 to 44 year olds.

Internet and Online Video Viewing
Everybody’s doing it: With 73% of the active Internet population viewing video online, the average viewer spent 2 hours and 19 minutes streaming video online in May, which is less than 10% of overall Internet usage.

But how they do it differs by gender: Women tend to view more TV-affiliated video content online, while men are more inclined toward consumer-generated media sites such as YouTube.

And differs by age: 18 to 24 year olds watch the most online video; however the availability of diverse content has fueled the growth of online video across a wide spectrum of U.S. adults.

Mobile Phone Video Viewing
Small but growing: As of the first quarter of 2008, 91 million Americans owned a video-capable phone and 13.9 million subscribers were paying for a mobile video plan - up 65% from just a year ago.

The mobile Internet offers huge potential for future growth: 4.4 million U.S. mobile subscribers have watched mobile video and 95 million (37% of U.S. mobile subscribers) had subscribed to a mobile Internet data plan, as of Q1 2008.

Newsflash: Teens and young adults love their mobile phones: 62% of mobile video viewers are between the ages of 13 and 34.

Helping You Succeed
Understanding how consumers use media is more important than ever before. Not only do viewers have more programming options and channels, but now choose the timing and devices used for viewing. That’s why Empower MediaMarketing provides special expertise for integrating emerging technologies into your media strategy so that you can effectively reach unique target audiences, regardless of when, where and how media is delivered.

By: Kirby Thornton, Director of Research