According to the most recent data, U.S. viewers aged 15 years and older spent on average *** hours and ** minutes watching TV per day in 2024. Adults aged 75 and above spent the most time watching television at over **** hours, whilst 20 to 24-year-olds watched TV for less than *** hours each day. The dynamic TV landscape The way people consume video entertainment platforms has significantly changed in the past decade, with a forecast suggesting that the time spent watching traditional TV in the U.S. will probably decline in the years ahead, while digital video will gain in popularity. Younger age groups in particular tend to cut the cord and subscribe to video streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video. TV advertising in a transition period Similarly, the TV advertising market made a development away from traditional linear TV towards online media. While the ad spending on traditional TV in the U.S. generally increased until the end of the 2010s, this value is projected to decline to below ** billion U.S. dollars in the next few years. By contrast, investments in connected TV advertising are expected to steadily grow, despite the amount being just over half of the traditional TV ad spend by 2025.

As of March 2021, most of U.S. Americans watched live TV ** or more hours per week recently, with a share of ** percent of respondents to a survey. Eight percent stated to have been spending less than *** hour consuming live television content and ** percent of people interviewed do not watch live TV at all.

Why would people watch less live TV?

Although watching television has always been among the most popular media activities in the world, with the advent of the streaming market and its increasing popularity, the appeal of live TV is waning. Paying for movie and TV streaming services is becoming more commonplace, and companies like Netflix offer a wealth of content which live TV cannot always match. However, paid streaming services are not live television’s only competitor.
Content offering Online video market leader YouTube allows viewers to enjoy not only music videos but entire movies, recordings of older shows, and an incredible amount of user-generated content unlikely ever to make it to traditional television. Meanwhile, the kind of content that live TV can deliver which is totally unique is dwindling, and gradually becoming limited to talk shows, reality TV, and news programs. As streaming services grow even more sophisticated in terms of what they offer and how they do it, it is possible that live TV viewing will be left behind whilst audiences pursue online content they can watch on the go, on their mobile, and at the click of a button.

Data on the average amount of time people in different countries spend watching TV on-demand showed that Americans aged between 18 and 24 years old watched 2.87 hours of TV on-demand per day, while people from Italy in this age group only watched 1.88 hours per day.

TV consumption - additional information As of 2015, an estimated 1.57 billion households around the world owned at least one TV set , while the surge of the internet has further extended the penetration rates and daily consumption of video content around the world. According to a 2015 report on average daily TV viewing in countries around the world, users in the United States lead the world in daily TV watching time, with some 274 minutes, the equivalent of more than four and a half hours. Another report shows that Americans predominantly spend their time watching cable television, with an average of 205.8 minutes of cable TV content forecast to be watched in 2018.

However, as an increasing number of people turn to the internet and streaming services for their television fix, the number of U.S. households without a television is on the rise. In 2011, there were 8 million "cord nil" households that made no use of cable, satellite or telco services, a figure which rose to 22 million by 2016, the equivalent of 22 percent of all broadband households.

The future of pay TV also appears to be under threat as a result of the direct competition from streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix. The number of pay TV subscribers in the United States has decreased from over 100 million in 2010 to 95.7 million in 2016, with numbers expected to continue falling to 90.7 million by 2022. In comparison, the number of subscribers who subscribe to three or more streaming services has more than doubled from nine percent in December 2014 to 19 percent in December 2016.

In 2023, full-time employed consumers spent an average of **** hours watching TV each day, down slightly from the previous year. Unsurprisingly, unemployed viewers spent more time with television on a daily basis than full or part-time workers.

This statistic contains data on the average monthly time spent watching ad-supported TV in the United States in 2017, by month. According to the source, the average household spent an a combined *** hours and ** minutes watching ad-supported TV in December 2017.

In 2024, the average daily time spent watching broadcast television in the United Kingdom decreased compared to the previous year. While the viewing time was nearly three hours in 2021, people from the UK spent 35 minutes less on watching TV in 2024.

In 2024, the average time spent per individual watching broadcast television in the UK amounted to ****minutes per day. Despite an initial short spike in viewing time in 2020, likely due to the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic, broadcast TV consumption declined each year since then. Older audiences tended to consume traditional TV more than their younger counterparts, with people aged 65 years and over watching TV for roughly **** hours on a daily basis, compared to less than ********among 16 to-24-year-olds. Internet-connected devices transform the TV market The television continues to be crucial to the UK’s media landscape, regardless of declining TV viewing time. The most recent data showed that the number of TV households in the region increased from **** million in 2017 to more than ** million in 2021, as smart TVs and connected TVs become the devices of choice. In 2022, the penetration rate of smart TV sets peaked in 2021 and 2022 at ** percent. Alteration of consumer habits While traditional TV consumption has declined lately, online TV services provided by broadcasters have increased in popularity. The average daily viewing time of broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) in the UK doubled between 2018 and 2022. Additionally, online audiovisual revenues grew by nearly **** billion British pounds during the same period, demonstrating the recent shift from linear TV towards online video alternatives.

The timeline shows the daily time spent watching TV per capita in North American from 2011 to 2018 as well as a forecast for the period 2019 to 2021. ZenithOptimedia reported that projected that the average North American spent *** minutes daily watching TV in 2018, continuing the downward trend since 2011.

The average weekly time spent watching television in Canada from September 2023 to May 2024 was around ** hours a week among adults aged 18 or above. Those between the age of 25 and 54 watched **** hours per week. Meanwhile, teens watched just ***** hours each week. Traditional vs. digital media consumption in Canada According to the most recent data, Canadians spent over ** hours a day with major media in 2021. Taking a deeper look at the specific media split, on average, adults in the country spent *** minutes with traditional media, and the largest portion of time – *** minutes – consuming digital media of all sorts that year. Online video users in Canada In 2021 it was measured that ** percent of the Canadian population watched TV online. The ability to watch time-shifted TV, as opposed to live viewing, has brought about services such as subscription video-on-demand. It is believed that in 2021 there were **** million people subscribing to Netflix in Canada. The popularity and accessibility of programming on such platforms also introduced the notion of binge viewing, defined as watching at least three episodes of a TV show in one sitting.

In 2024, **** percent of American TV consumers spent ***** or more hours a day watching TV, while almost ** percent spent *** hour or more per day watching live TV. Traditional TV consumption declined in recent years, as more and more viewers opt for streaming services.

During the past decade, the time spent watching TV in Sweden generally decreased, despite a small growth of *** minutes from 2019 to 2020, probably due to the pandemic with people staying at home. However, since then, the average daily TV time fell again to ** minutes in 2024. According to the source, people aged 60 years and older watched live TV the most, at *** minutes per day that year. For comparison, 15 to 24-year-olds' daily viewing time amounted to only ** minutes.

Between the third quarter of 2021 and the third quarter of 2024, Americans increased their smart TV screen time, going from ** minutes to ** minutes. The smart TV viewing time also grew in Europe, albeit at a slower pace.

This statistic presents the daily time spent watching TV worldwide from 2011 to 2018, with a forecast thereof until 2021. According to ZenithOptimedia, TV viewers worldwide watched *** minutes of television daily in 2018, down from *** minutes in 2017. The amount of daily time spent on TV is projected to decrease by a further ***** minutes by 2021. However, television consumption has remained relatively stable, whilst time spent reading newspapers and magazines has almost halved since 2011.

In the third quarter of 2024, an internet user in Brazil spent, on average, **** hours per day watching TV. Meanwhile, in Mexico, the figure stood at ***** hours and ** minutes. Brazil's most-viewed TV channels included Globo, Record, and SBT.

People in Japan on average spent ***** minutes per weekday watching real-time television in fiscal year 2024. The viewing time increased considerably compared to the previous year because of the inclusion of an additional age group in the survey.

The statistic presents the most popular times to watch television in the United States as of *************. The data shows that ** percent of surveyed people in the U.S. watched television in the evening, whereas the least popular time for TV viewing was between midnight and 6am.

In 2024, the average daily television viewing time in France came to a total of 177 minutes, or two hours and 57 minutes, which represents a decrease of 22 minutes compared to the previous year. The average viewing time has been continuously declining since 2015 before peaking in 2020 at 234 minutes in total.

In 2022, the average daily TV viewing time in the U.S. amounted to around ***** hours. While traditional TV is declining in popularity, the time spent watching apps on connected TV devices is growing.

According to the most recent data, the average time spent watching television across all European countries came to a total of *** minutes per day in 2021. Romanian and Greek TV viewers spent the longest time in front of their television at around **** hours daily.

As of July 2022, Hispanic Americans spent most of their TV and video viewing time watching content on streaming platforms, with a share of **** percent reporting that they streamed rather than used broadcast or cable. The same applied to the Black and Asian U.S. population, while white people still tend to watch more often on cable TV.