According to estimates, there were 125 million TV homes in the United States for the 2023-2024 TV season. Whilst the number of TV households continues to grow, pay TV is becoming less popular – the pay TV penetration rate in the U.S. was pegged at 64 percent in 2023, marking a drop of over 10 percentage points in just five years. The changing TV landscape The trend of consumers (especially younger generations) cutting the cord and instead moving online to streaming services has meant that many pay TV providers have struggled to keep afloat. In spite of this, television statistics show that watching terrestrial TV is still a popular media activity among U.S. consumers. Television has been a popular pastime for so long that it seems impossible the medium could ever die out – but its traditional form is certainly changing. The advent of 3D and smart TV technology, as well as connected TV devices, mean that the ways in which we watch television are changing all the time. User demographics A key factor when considering television consumption in the United States is how a consumer’s age affects their viewing habits and preferences. As of 2022, the average daily time spent watching TV among adults aged 75 years and older amounted to nearly five hours. 20 to 24-year-olds spent just around two hours per day consuming TV content. Moreover, the share of cable TV subscribers was higher among older adults, with half of consumers aged 65 years and older subscribing to a cable TV service, compared to 34 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds at the beginning of 2023.

Data on the global television market showed that there were an estimated 1.72 billion TV households worldwide in 2021. According to the source, this figure will continue to grow and surpass 1.8 billion by 2026.

How are viewers receiving their television content?

A more detailed look at television consumption by platform reveals that free-to-air digital terrestrial TV (FTA DTT) remains the most popular television distribution model worldwide. In addition to that, the latest reports also estimate that the number of IPTV households will exceed digital cable TV households for the first time in 2026. IPTV stands for internet protocol television and describes a new technology that delivers video content via the internet instead of traditional satellite or cable connections.

Spotlight on the United States

The number of TV households in the United States has been growing for decades. And yet, the U.S. pay TV penetration rate keeps dropping every year, mainly due to the ever-increasing accessibility and popularity of online video streaming options. Audiences no longer want to be tied to fixed broadcasting schedules, which is why many viewers are cutting the cord and canceling their pay TV bundles in favor of on-demand video content that can be watched whenever, wherever, and on whichever devices they want.

In 2022, 111 million households in the United States used connected TVs at least once per month. The forecast suggests that CTV consumption will further increase in the years to come, with 121 million U.S. households having CTVs, such as smart TVs, streaming devices, or gaming consoles, by 2027.

Estimates showed that by the end of 2024, the number of pay TV households in the U.S. would amount to 64 million. By comparison, the number of broadband-only households is forecast to be 45 million, and the number of over-the-air TV households is estimated to be even lower. However, while the broadband-only and over-the-air household count will probably increase between 2024 and 2028, pay TV households will decline by six percent.

The connected TV penetration rate in the United States rose to an all time high in 2023, with 88 percent of American households owning at least one internet-connected TV device. Since 2014, there has been consistent growth, except for the year 2019. However 2020 indicates the growth returning, with an increase of six percentage points from 2019 to 2020.

In 2020, Samsung remained the most popular smart TV brand among U.S. households, with a steady share of 28 percent. Alcatel/TCL and Vizio rounded out the top of the list, with 13 and 12 percent market share, respectively.

TV market

Despite the growing popularity of alternative consumer electronic devices, such as smartphones and tablets, the television market has continued to grow. The total number of TV households worldwide is forecast to reach the 1.8 billion mark by 2025, despite a slump in 2012, and there are over 122 million TV homes in the United States for the 2021-2022 TV season.

Smart TVs

Apart from providing users the viewing experience a more traditional TV set can offer, smart TVs also enable access to the internet and connection with other devices. Smart TV technology is becoming an increasingly popular feature of modern television sets: in 2021, over 70 percent of individuals in the U.S. household had a smart TV.

This statistic illustrates the share of Americans owning a smart TV. As of September 2024, 70 percent of 18 - 29 year old consumers do so in the U.S. This is according to exclusive results from the Consumer Insights Global survey which shows that 81 percent of 30 - 49 year old customers also fall into this category.Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

Data revealed that the number of traditional pay TV households in the United States stood at around 58 million in 2023. This figure will likely drop further over the next few years and amount to less than 41 million by 2028. Meanwhile, digital pay TV is becoming increasingly popular. Pay TV is fighting an uphill battle The United States is one of the largest pay TV markets worldwide based on penetration. But even though millions of viewers frequently tune in to watch their favorite shows, news broadcasts, and sports events on the small screen, the U.S. pay TV industry is facing enormous challenges. More viewers are canceling their cable or satellite subscriptions than ever, be it because of mounting prices, limited content offerings, or the proliferation of over-the-top (OTT) video services and streaming platforms. Based on the latest data, over half of TV households in the country are currently without a telco, cable, or satellite TV provider. Can cable companies combat subscriber loss? The cord-cutting movement and other recent changes in consumer behavior have had a substantial impact on the pay TV landscape and its players. In 2023, U.S. pay TV providers suffered a combined net subscriber loss of around five million viewers. This downward trend also extends to the largest pay TV providers in the U.S., such as Charter and Comcast. However, they have recently ventured into the world of streaming to offset subscriber losses, but whether this expansion will be enough to effectively combat churn remains to be seen.

As of 2018, around 31 percent of U.S. television households made use of 4K Ultra HDTV products. Since first becoming commercially available in the early 2010s, ultra-high-definition products have transitioned from luxury good to increasingly standard household devices.

Ultra HD

The 4k moniker is used to acknowledge the fact that these displays are built with nearly 4,000 horizontal pixels, and, along with 8k, fall under the category of ultra-high-definition (UHD). These UHD products were initially used almost exclusively in film production but have since found their way into nearly a third of U.S. television households. By the end of 2019 there expected to be around 300 million UHD households around the world, nearly half of which will be located in the Asia Pacific region. In 2018, over 60 percent of all televisions sold in the U.S. contained UHD technology, while the global sales share grew to over 50 percent.

TV households

While the recent success of streaming platforms has limited the success of pay television providers, these new platforms do not seem to have slowed down the sales of televisions themselves. As of 2019 nearly 120 million American households own a television, marking the product’s highest number to date and continuing a trend of decades of expansion.

When it comes to share of people living in households that have a cable TV/satellite TV in the United States, 47 percent of 18 - 29 year olds do so in the U.S. This is according to exclusive insights from the Consumer Insights Global survey which shows that 52 percent of 30 - 49 year old consumers also fall into this category.Statista Consumer Insights offer you all results of our exclusive Statista surveys, based on more than 2,000,000 interviews.

According to data from June 2019, SVOD services are now in 74 percent of Hispanic households in the United States, as well as 80 percent of Asian American households. Internet-enabled TV-connected devices (such as enabled smart TVs, internet-connected device and enabled game consoles) are found in 79 percent of Hispanic homes, up from 75 percent in the previous year.

The penetration rate of smart TVs in the United States amounted to 79 percent as of 2024 and was thus more popular than streaming media players. The penetration rates of both smart TVs and connected streaming devices in U.S. TV households increased compared with 2021.

As of March 2021, around 44 percent of U.S. television households have a 4K-capable TV set at home compared to 31 percent in 2019. Since first becoming commercially available in the early 2010s, ultra-high-definition products have transitioned from high-end devices to increasingly standard household devices.

Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) was the most popular platform for U.S. households watching video content in the first quarter of 2024, with 110 million households using services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+. Free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) came in second place, surpassing traditional TV households between 2022 and 2024. While traditional pay TV decreased in popularity, online TV services, such as YouTube TV and Fubo TV, could partly offset those losses.

In the United States, households without a smart TV rather tended to watch live TV than smart TV households according to a survey from March 2022. However, owning a smart TV is not a guarantee to watch more online content. While 22 percent of non-smart TV households primarily consumed video-on-demand services, the share of smart TV homes doing so amounted to 15 percent.

According to a survey conducted in the Unites States in 2024, 58 percent of respondents have connected or smart TVs in their household. By contrast, only 26 percent of respondents owned a 4K or Ultra HD (UHD) TV set.

This statistic shows the projected share of Ultra HD homes that will be using 8K displays worldwide in 2023. 8K Ultra HDTVs are forecasted to be most prevalent in the Asia Pacific region, with 4.1 percent of Ultra HDTV homes using 8K displays by 2023.

The statistic shows the share of TV households with a Netflix subscription in the United States in 2011 and 2017. In the presented time period, the share of TV households with Netflix rose from 28 percent to 54 percent.

Receiving live TV via over-the-air services remains an important TV source for U.S. consumers. However, while the number of OTA TV households increased between 2017 and 2022, the figure decreased in 2023 to around 18.1 million households.

In the United States, the expansion of communication technology in the 20th century transformed everyday life for American citizens. The patent for the telephone was granted in 1876, and by the end of the century there were over a million units operational across the country. Radio technology was also developed in the late 19th century, but its commercial application was not in effect until the 1920s - however, as radio transmissions were wireless they required less infrastructural investment, and more individual households owned a radio in the 1930s than the total number of telephones in use across the country.

It was not until after the Second World War that TV ownership became widespread in the U.S., and it was the most quickly-adopted of the three major technologies, with ownership reaching a similar level to radio ownership by the 1960s. In 1962, there were 53 million households in the U.S., 50 million owned a radio, while 46 million owned a TV.