philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

The Lines Continue to Blur Between TV and Other Media for Young People

• "Television is America's No. 1 pastime," reports The New York Times, "with an average of four hours and 39 minutes consumed by every person every day."
• While viewers 35 and older are spending more time in front of the TV, Nielsen reports that younger viewers aged 12 to 34 are watching significantly less as their attention is divided between traditional TV, Internet videos, social networks, mobile phones and video games.
• "It has long been predicted that these new media would challenge traditional television viewing, but this is the first significant evidence to emerge in research data," suggests the article.
• Moreover, young people have a greater tendency to watch the same shows on computers and phones. This shift in viewing may have large implications for ad spending that could shift from broadcast to streaming.
• To children, watching video on the Web is no different from watching on the TV, whereas older generations tend to treat television separately from their other media.
• "According to data for the first nine months of 2011, children spent as much time in front of the television set as they did in 2010, and in some cases spent more," adds the article. "But the proportion of live viewing is shrinking while time-shifted viewing is expanding."

See the original story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/business/media/young-people-are-watching-but-less-often-on-tv.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=business