Estimates suggest that in 2026 U.S. adults will spend around ** percent of their time watching traditional TV each day. This figure has generally fallen in recent years and the downward trend is forecast to continue in the years to come. Screen time Although average daily time spent watching TV appears to be decreasing, this does not necessarily mean that people are spending less time in front of screens; this drop is likely due to an increasing amount of time spent with phones, tablets, and laptops. With on-demand streaming services such as Netflix gaining massive popularity, people can watch a huge range of programming whilst on the go, meaning that screen time is no longer limited to time spent at home in front of the TV. Young people around the world have been especially quick to adopt smartphone-based video streaming habits meaning that television screen time will likely fall even further in the future. Television in the U.S. As mentioned above, the way people are consuming their video entertainment content is rapidly changing in the United States. By 2028, estimates suggest that only **** million U.S. households will pay for traditional TV services, down from over ** million as of 2019. In order to compete for people’s business, cable and satellite providers must find a way to adapt in a way the meets the needs of today’s increasingly mobile consumers. Some are launching their own streaming services in a bid to tackle cord-cutting, most notably Comcast.

As of May 2025, streaming was the favorite platform for television and video users in the United States, reaching a 44.8 percent share of the overall viewing time. This marks a growth compared with the previous month. Meanwhile, the market share of cable TV and broadcast further decreased.

According to estimates, there were *** 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 ** percent in 2023, marking a drop of over ** 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 ** 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 **** hours. ** to **-year-olds spent just around *** 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 ** percent of ** to **-year-olds at the beginning of 2023.

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

Overall, women spent an average of almost *************** hour per day watching television in 2023, down from **** hours in 2022. Men watched more TV on average than women, decreasing their average daily viewing time slightly to **** hours in 2022.

According to the most recent data, U.S. viewers aged 15 years and older spent on average almost ***** hours watching TV per day in 2023. Adults aged 65 and above spent the most time watching television at over **** hours, whilst 15 to 19-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.

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.

According to a 2024 survey, the majority of U.S. viewers used a combination of both traditional TV and video streaming services, with ** percent of respondents subscribing to those platforms. A further *** in three people interviewed stated that they only used streaming services, while **** percent only viewed content on traditional TV sources, such as pay TV and over-the-air TV.

In 2023, TV consumption in the United States was highest among African Americans, who watched an average of **** hours of TV each day. While the viewing time dropped among white, Black, and Hispanic consumers, Asian Americans’ time spent grew from 2021 to 2022 to around *** hours per day. TV and streaming engagement among racial groups As of mid 2022, The U.S. population still spent most of their time watching TV and streaming content on traditional media, such as cable and broadcast. Roughly ** percent of their viewing time was allocated to streaming. It was also observed that Hispanics were more likely to use online video platforms than any other ethnic group, with a viewing time share of over ** percent. By contrast, using streaming services accounted for around ****third of the total viewing time among white and Asian consumers. Traditional TV vs. digital video The way consumers watch TV shows and movies has changed significantly. A forecast showed that traditional TV consumption among Americans will continue to steadily decline in the upcoming years. Meanwhile, with an increasing number of consumers adopting streaming and social videos, digital video soars, outpacing TV viewing time by the end of 2023.

“NFL Sunday Night Football” was the most watched TV show in the United States in the 2023/2024 season, with roughly **** million viewers. “NFL Monday Night Football” ranked second with approximately ** million viewers. NFL sports broadcasts score high with viewers Football matches and other live sports events have always attracted impressive audiences in the United States, and this popularity also extends to their television broadcasts. In 2023, the Super Bowl LVII was the top primetime telecast in the U.S., drawing nearly *** million viewers to their screens. Furthermore, none of the 10 most successful primetime programs were not football-related, explaining why 30-second advertising slots during the Super Bowl cost an average of ***** million U.S. dollars. Most popular TV networks NBC was the leading ad-supported television network in the United States, with an average viewership of around **** million viewers in 2023. One of its most popular shows during the 2023/2024 season included “Chicago Fire,” a drama that has been on the air for many years. The only other network to surpass **** million viewers in 2023 was CBS, which aired “NCIS” as one of its most successful fictional series.

TV consumption in the United States increased during the coronavirus pandemic, with a survey held in June 2021 revealing that 15 percent of respondents reported watching a lot more television than they did prior to the outbreak. This was 27 percent lower than the share of people who said the same in February the same year.

According to a survey of global consumers conducted between 2021 and the end of 2023, watching live television was consistently more popular than online video consumption in the examined period. In the fourth quarter of 2024, ** percent of global consumers reported watching streamed video content, while the share of consumers worldwide reporting watching live television was approximately ** percent.

The global number of TV viewers in the 'TV Viewers' segment of the media market was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2029 by in total 0.2 billion users (+3.8 percent). After the ninth consecutive increasing year, the indicator is estimated to reach 5.5 billion users and therefore a new peak in 2029. Notably, the number of TV viewers of the 'TV Viewers' segment of the media market was continuously increasing over the past years.Find more information concerning Benelux and Russia. The Statista Market Insights cover a broad range of additional markets.

The number of adult original scripted TV shows declined by around 14 percent between 2022 and 2023 to 516 releases. The strikes of writers and actors in 2023 in Hollywood caused several shutdowns and delays in production. The last drop of scripted TV series was recorded in 2020 during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the most recent data, ** percent of adults in the United States had some sort of live pay TV service via a cable, DBS, telco, or internet-delivered vMVPD as of September 2023. The pay TV penetration rate fell by ** percentage points between 2014 and 2023, and will likely continue to drop as consumers increasingly opt for video streaming service subscriptions.

How long do people from different ages watch television each day in the Netherlands? The overall television consumption increased from 2022 to 2023. There were significant differences when look at the age groups. People aged 20 to 34 years spent the least time watching linear TV, at about 110 minutes in 2023. Opposite to this are the older age groups, with 50-to-64-year-olds, for example, watching for over four hours on a daily basis.

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.

According to a survey conducted between October and November 2024, ** percent of people in Portugal reported watching television on a TV set every day or almost every day. This was the highest share among all countries in the European Union. The lowest percentages of people who watched television on a TV set daily were found in Luxemburg, where the share of daily TV set users was at ** percent.

After an increase in original scripted TV series in the United States between 2020 and 2022, the amount decreased in 2023. *** original scripted drama, comedy, and limited TV shows were aired on broadcast and cable TV, as well as on streaming services in 2023, down by ** percent from the previous year. Impact of the strikes in Hollywood on TV productions With writers and actors being on strike for several months in 2023, the industry was likely to see a temporary decline in scripted TV show productions and releases as a result. An analysis from mid 2023 showed that over **** of productions were expected to be affected by the work stoppages from September 2023 to April 2024. As the strike had not been resolved as of July 2023, even more TV series than expected had been affected. Concerned consumers During the strike, several studios announced production delays of highly anticipated shows and films, such as the last season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and every upcoming Marvel movie. According to a survey from May 2023, U.S. consumers were particularly worried about TV shows being delayed or canceled due to labor disputes. Nearly ** percent of respondents stated to be concerned about series, while only *** percent were worried about movies being impacted.

The statistic shows the perspectives on whether or not reality television shows are mostly based on a script according to adults in the United States as of November 2018. The findings reveal that 61 percent of surveyed adults in the U.S. believed that what actors say in reality TV shows is mostly based on a script, with just 18 percent saying that they thought most of the spoken content in such shows was largely unscripted.