Total TV, Video Consumption Grows Slightly In Q4 2015

by Wayne Friedman, March 25, 2016,                                             

Total TV-video consumption grew in the fourth quarter of 2015 by just under 1%. These results -- from Nielsen data and estimates from Brian Wieser, senior research analyst at Pivotal Research Group -- include live TV, time-shifted TV, desktop online video, DVD/Blu-Ray viewing, tablets, smartphones and multimedia/OTT devices.

Wieser says total video consumption was essentially flat year-over-year, slipping 0.2% for all of 2015. He also notes declines in total traditional TV viewing -- live TV plus time shifted viewing -- slowed in the period, dropping by just 1% across the whole U.S. TV population.
In addition, he says, time-shifted viewing is increasingly stable with regard to time-shifted time per person and the number of people who time-shift viewing. Looking at total traditional live plus time-shifted TV viewing this activity declined just 1.0% for the year.

Wieser says 33% of TV’s heaviest users represent 52% of consumption. Similarly 33% of the same group account for 53% of internet consumption activity. “This reflects the notion that heavy consumers of TV can be better characterized as heavy consumers of media,” Wieser says,

Looking specifically at streaming video, 14% of the population accounts for 94% of total streaming video consumption from PCs. Top 7% of video streaming users watch nearly 13 times as much traditional TV as they do streaming video -- which would be lower if mobile devices were included.