Television consumption

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A group of people watching television

Television consumption is a major part of media consumption in Western culture. Similar to other high-consumption ways of life, television watching is prompted by a quest for pleasure, escape, and "anesthesia." Extreme dependence on television is actually an addiction[citation needed] to the prepackaged forms through which pleasure, escape, and anesthesia can be conveniently attained.

Statistics[]

In the US, there is an estimated 119.9 million TV households in the TV season 2018/19.

In 2017, an average U.S. consumer spent 238 minutes (3h 58min) daily watching TV.[1] While overall media consumption continues to rise, live TV consumption was on the decline in 2016.[2]

In 2009 the numbers were generally lower but still amounted to 9 years in front of the screen for an average 65-year-old American (more than 4 h/day, 28 h/week). Given the 30% of local TV news broadcast time devoted to advertising, this results in 2 million TV commercials seen by the average person by age 65. An average child in the US will see 20,000 30-second TV commercials per year.[3] The time spent watching commercials is reduced when watching recorded TV.[4] It has even been surmised that due to media multitasking, TV commercials are largely ignored.[5]

See also: Commercial skipping

Change in consumption[]

With the growing effect of streaming sites and online television, there is an upward trend towards OTT (over-the-top) streaming sites, which causes a disruptive effect on cable television.[6] In 2013, 63% of the households in the United States have been using a video streaming and delivery service, and 22% of those households watch Netflix every week of the year. In English Canada, Netflix is owned by 25% of households, and that increases to 33% for households with teens. Having the ability to watch commercial-free episodes at any given time and however and wherever the consumer desires, Netflix is shifting the way viewers consume television to a more digitalized, online manner.[6]

Binge-watching[]

Main article: Binge-watching

Binge-watching can be defined as: "the experience of watching multiple episodes of a program in a single sitting."[7] This phenomenon originated in the Digital Age when streaming videos became easily accessible due to the advancement in technology and the low costs of unlimited bandwidth. Binge-watching has initiated the notion that by using this style of consumption, viewers have a greater understanding and knowledge of the show and character development, versus viewers who don't binge-watch. This overall greater understanding of the viewer has caused program executives and scholars to create a deeper understanding of uses and gratifications to continue to motivate consumers to use this style of viewing.[7] In the summer of 2013, all the episodes to Season 4 of Arrested Development (TV series) was released on Netflix, and 10% of their viewers watched the entire season in 24 hours. When House of Cards (U.S. TV series) and Orange Is the New Black also released full seasons at a time in 2013 on Netflix, high percentage of viewers watched back-to-back episodes and finished the seasons within days. Even though these series are all different genres, the truth of binge-watching remains constant widespread.[6]

Television consumption and obesity[]

Across cultures, television consumption has been associated to cause an overweight, inactive lifestyle among high school students across The United States.[8] From a sample of over 15,000 high school students, 43% of those students exceeded 2 hours a day of television viewing on a regular school day. Overall, 31% of the sample did not participate in daily physical activity, 11% were overweight, and 76% ate an insufficient amount of servings of fruit and vegetables. Watching television for 2 hours a day was correlated to being overweight and sedentary for White male and females, as well as Hispanic females. Among Black males, the amount of television consumption was associated with an increase on physical activity. There was no correlation for Black females and Hispanic males.[8]

Television and body attitudes among adolescents[]

In a study of 1,452 high school students, there was an association between what type of television was consumed and the effects each genre had on the body image of an adolescent. It was found that time watching Soap opera had a direct correlation with a drive to thinness in both genders, and also the drive for muscularity in boys.[9] Entertainment, social learning, and escape from negative effect are seen as the three main components of television usage, and other than entertainment, the components have a significant correlations to negative outcomes for both males and females. This study suggests that the correlation between negative body images among adolescents and television consumption is based on the types of content and motives for watching, not the total amount.[9]

Crime shows and attitudes towards crime[]

As research has suggested, the majority of public knowledge about crime and justice is learned from the media.[10] Since the study did not factor in the difference in types of crime and investigation shows, the study could not include insight on what type of crime show caused what behaviour/attitude. However, it concluded that regular consumption of various crime shows is not related to perceived police effectiveness and punishment-type attitudes, but is related to the viewers overall fear of crime. Also, the amount of time spent viewing these shows had no correlation to perceived police effectiveness, punitive attitudes, or fear of crime.[10]

Global view[]

In 2014, counting all four possible "screens" (TV set, PC, mobile phone/smartphone and tablet computer) and taking into account time-shifted TV, the worldwide consumption had risen by 7 minutes over 2013. Slight decreases in North America and Asia were more than compensated by increases in Latin America and Africa. The most popular genre worldwide, according to observations at 2016's TV and digital content event MIPTV, is drama.[11]

The United States lead the global list of daily TV viewing time in 2015, followed by Poland, Japan, Italy, and Russia.[12] According to other statistics, the UK was top, followed by the US, France, Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria in 2014.[13] In 2002, the US and the UK were ranked equal with 28 hours per person per week, followed by Italy, Germany, France, and Ireland.[14]

Besides the continuing slow decline in average viewing times for the traditional linear TV, ZenithMedia has predicted a decline also for the number of viewers in 2015 also[15]

As in the US, worldwide media consumption continues to rise, but live TV consumption was on the decline in 2015 and predicted to drop even further with a marked decrease from 2010 from 195.6 min/day to 179.5 min/day (~3 h/day, 21 h/week).[16]

Average media consumption (minutes per day) in 2015[16]
Region min/day
Asia Pacific 154.5
Central and Eastern Europe 222.9
Latin America 199.0
North America 292.6
MENA 249.7
Western Europe 220.5
Rest of world 211.0

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "U.S. media usage - time spent watching television 2020 | Statistic". Statista. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  2. ^ Jason Lynch (27 June 2016). "U.S. Adults Consume an Entire Hour More of Media Per Day Than They Did Just Last Year – For daily total of 10 hours, 39 minutes". Live TV usage among U.S. adults is still declining, down three minutes from the first quarter 2015, but not as rapidly as in recent years. Nielsen notes the live TV decline was much more pronounced between 2013 and 2014, when it dropped by 16 minutes.
  3. ^ "Television & Health". California State University, Northridge. 2009.
  4. ^ "TV advertising skipped by 86% of viewers". The Guardian. 2010. nearly 90% of television viewers always skip through the adverts on their digital video recorder but TV still remains the most memorable form of advertising
  5. ^ "Why TV advertising means nothing in the age of the smartphone". CNBC. 2015. "Every 15 or 20 minutes, right when there's a commercial break on TV, you just see this massive peak in [mobile] activity," ... That means that even if Nielsen ratings—the industry standard for selling advertisements against a program—say that a million people watch a show, a lot of them are essentially shutting their eyes to the ad breaks.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c Matrix, Sidneyeve (5 September 2014). "The Netflix Effect: Teens, Binge Watching, and On-Demand Digital Media Trends". Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures. 6 (1): 119–138. doi:10.1353/jeu.2014.0002. ISSN 1920-261X.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Pittman, Matthew; Sheehan, Kim (5 October 2015). "Sprinting a media marathon: Uses and gratifications of binge-watching television through Netflix". First Monday. 20 (10).
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b Lowry, Richard; Wechsler, Howell; Galuska, Deborah A.; Fulton, Janet E.; Kann, Laura (December 2002). "Television Viewing and its Associations with Overweight, Sedentary Lifestyle, and Insufficient Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables Among US High School Students: Differences by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender". Journal of School Health. 72 (10): 413–421. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2002.tb03551.x. ISSN 0022-4391.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Tiggemann, Marika (May 2005). "Television and Adolescent Body Image: The Role of Program Content and Viewing Motivation". Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 24 (3): 361–381. doi:10.1521/jscp.24.3.361.65623. hdl:2328/13589. ISSN 0736-7236.
  10. ^ Jump up to: a b Dowler, Kenneth. Media Consumption and Public Attitudes Toward Crime and Justice: The Relationship Between Fear of Crime, Punitive Attitudes, and Perceived Police Effectiveness. California State University at Bakersfield.
  11. ^ "How is TV consumption changing around the world?". euronews. 6 April 2016. Average TV viewing times vary a lot around the world, there has been a decrease in some regions, like North America and Asia but an increase in Latin America and Africa. Overall though, compared with 2014, the viewing time of traditional TV has decreased by around 3 minutes per day. However when you take into account the amount of 'non-linear' viewing going on (using data from a few countries that have started to measure 4-screen audiences) you see an additional 7 minutes of watch time per day.
  12. ^ "Average daily TV viewing time per person in selected countries worldwide in 2015 (in minutes)". statista.com.
  13. ^ Thompson, Derek (28 May 2014). "How the World Consumes Media—in Charts and Maps". Theatlantic.com. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
  14. ^ "Media > Television viewing: Countries Compared". Nationmaster.com. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  15. ^ "Mobile to drive 19.8% increase in online video consumption in 2016". zenithmedia. 2015. the number of regular linear TV viewers has been in decline in France and Russia since 2013, in the UK and the US since 2014, and is expected to start to decline in China this year. The decline of linear TV viewing is in direct correlation with the increasing quantity and quality of content available online, both from short-form platforms like YouTube and long-form platforms like Netflix. ZenithOptimedia forecasts that the number of regular online video viewers will increase by 5.8% in 2015, 5.1% in 2016 and 5.3% in 2017.
  16. ^ Jump up to: a b Anne Austin, Jonathan Barnard, Nicola Hutcheon (2015). "Media Consumption Forecasts" (PDF). zenithmedia.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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