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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In 2023, the average time spent per individual watching broadcast television in the UK amounted to 158 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 2010. Older audiences tended to consume traditional TV more than their younger counterparts, with people aged 65 years and over watching TV more than five hours on a daily basis, compared to less than an hour 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 26.7 million in 2017 to more than 27 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 67 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 four billion British pounds during the same period, demonstrating the recent shift from linear TV towards online video alternatives.

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.

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.

In 2023, the average daily time spent watching 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 30 minutes less on watching TV two years later.

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.

As of March 2021, most of U.S. Americans watched live TV 12 or more hours per week recently, with a share of 26 percent of respondents to a survey. Eight percent stated to have been spending less than one hour consuming live television content and 14 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.

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 222 hours and 17 minutes watching ad-supported TV in December 2017.

In the third quarter of 2024, Indonesian internet users spent *** hours and ** minutes per day on average watching television and content delivered via broadcast and streaming services. In the same year, internet users in Indonesia listened to music via streaming services for *** hour and ** minutes 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 43.6 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.

In 2024, the average German television spent 176 minutes watching TV every day. This was the lowest figure since 1997, perhaps suggesting that watching TV is becoming less popular.

In 2023, full-time employed consumers spent an average of 2.02 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.

In a time when social media and video streaming grabbing more eyeballs, television consumption continues to decline. In 2024, China's average daily TV viewing time lingered around one hour and 43 minutes. Time spent watching television bounced back in 2020 at two hours and 12 minutes, when people inclined to stay at home due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

This statistic presents data on the share of time spent watching live and time-shifted TV in the United States in 2017, by household income. According to the source, ultra affluent households, with an annual household income of over 200 thousand U.S. dollars, spent 82 percent of their TV viewing time watching live television.

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 statistic presents the most popular times to watch television in the United States as of November 2018. The data shows that 88 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.