TV Ownership Declines For Second Time Since 1970

bs0d3 writes "Almost every year, the estimated number of U.S. households owning TV sets goes up. Until now. This year, for the second time since 1970, TV ownership has gone down; by about 1%. TV ownership among the key adult 18-49 demo also declined even steeper, down 2.7 percent and percentage of homes without a TV is at the highest level since 1975. The reasons behind this appear to be online media content and the recession."

Re:Slashdotted already?

[Samantha Wright]

The link is actually an ugly frame-wrapping news aggregator. The actual story is from Entertainment Weekly [ew.com]. For shame, submitter. For shame.

Computer monitors and gaming systems

[antifoidulus]

In addition to watching shows online, the ability to easily connect the XBox 360 and PS3 to a computer monitor has to be having a dampening effect on TV sales, esp. among the young. For less than $200, I can get a 23" LCD monitor that I can connect to my laptop for computing and watching shows online, and can connect to my console for gaming. Why on earth then would I want a TV, especially if I am living in a dorm or small apartment where space is at a premium?

The Slashdot Test Pattern

[westlake]

For those who never RTFA:

Meanwhile the rich get richer:

Homes with three or more TV sets will climb a notch to 56 percent.

UPDATE A Nielsen rep, after seeing media stories reacting to their report and chart, emailed to clarify that TV ownership has actually declined once before: In 1992, "after Nielsen adjusted for the 1990 Census, and subsequently underwent a period of significant growth."

or the articles it links to:

So, my story (below) about six-month-old Nielsen data has so far been picked up by the New York Post and Pat's Papers.

TV technologies on their way up include DVRs, which Nielsen estimates will be in 41 percent of homes in 2012, digital cable (51 percent) and HDTV (67 percent).

Also upticking: houses with three or more TV sets (56 percent) and time the average household spends in front of the tube or flat screen: a record 59 hours 28 minutes of TV watching per week.

Despite earlier reports that suggested people were unplugging, cable and satellite TV use has remained rock-steady in homes with TV (90 percent versus 10 percent of homes using rabbit ears).

For first time in history, TV ownership declines [kansascity.com]

These blog posts are a few paragraphs long and don't link to the Nielson report itself.

I would have liked to have had a look at regional and ethnic distribution --- our local cable service has gone multiingual and multicultural in a very big way.

There are a lot of ways to feed media to that big screen HDTV --- if you can afford (and have access to) digital cable, broadband Internet service, the video game console, the Roku set top box, and so on.

I haven't seen a shortage of programs worth watching. The problem is finding a program that everyone in the family wants to watch together.

Re:Reasoning

[Larryish]

The Big Bang Theory uses a studio audience.

They record the audience laughter during taping.

They use that recorded laughter as a laugh track in post, to fill in places where several re-takes meant less audience laughter.

Also the show is f-in brilliant, laugh track or no.