Nielsen Reports Americans Watch TV @ Record Levels.

Nielsen Media Research reported that the average American home watched more television the past TV season vs. any previous season. During the 2004-05 TV season (which started September 20, 2004 and just ended September 18, 2005), the average household in the U.S. tuned into television an average of 8 hours and 11 minutes per day. This is 2.7% higher than the previous season, 12.5% higher than 10 years ago, and the highest levels ever reported since television viewing was first measured by Nielsen Media Research in the 1950’s. During the Sept 2004-Sept 2005 season, the average person watched television 4 hours and 32 minutes each day, the highest level in 15 years.

The Primetime daypart during the 2004-05 season saw a slight increase in viewing from the previous season (see Table 2 in the attached document).

This overall upward trend in audience increases appears to be consistent heading into the new television season. For example, viewing levels during Summer 2005 (June-Aug 2005) were up slightly compared to last summer (see Table 3 in the attached document). Also, the primetime viewing audience for Premiere Week (9/19/05 – 9/25/05) of the 2005-06 TV season was considerably higher than for Premiere Week 2004 (9/20/04-9/26/04). Each night of Premiere Week 2005 saw increases compared to last, while Sunday and Monday continued to be the most viewed nights of the week with 11.5 million and 11.6 million viewers respectively.

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Household tuning levels going back to the 1950’s can be downloaded at the following link:

http://www.nielsenmedia.com/newsreleases/2005/TVviewinglevels.xls