Nielsen Confirms We're Still Couch Potato Nation

Nielsen released its fourth-quarter three-screen report yesterday, which measures how viewership is changing across TV, the PC and mobile devices, and the report elicits some fascinating facts about how video consumption is expanding, and changing, as mass media fragments. As was true during the last recession, media consumption habits continue to evolve ever onward, when it seems like everything else is standing still. Some key points:

• Time-shifted viewing, via DVR, is way up, showing a 33 percent increase from the fourth quarter last year. Adults age 25 to 34 do the most time-shifting, watching almost 11 hours of time-shifted video per month. All in all, 20 million more people are using DVRs than last year. So far, I guess the recession hasn’t impacted people’s willingness to pay for a box that lets them watch their shows whenever they want to.
• Time-shifting is taking place not just on the DVR, but increasingly on the Web in the 18 to 24 age bracket. Could this be the first age bracket to start cancelling its cable subs?
• Online video viewing takes place during work. Sixty-five percent of online video viewers do it between 9 and 5 on workdays. Nielsen interprets this as meaning that people are catching up with their favorite shows during lunchtime. For the sake of bosses everywhere, that assumption better be correct. Otherwise, it’s pretty clear who should be laid off.
• We continue to watch more TV in the home (including via DVR) every month, which means that much of these altered viewing patterns are merely additions to overall video viewing rather than activity that steals time from the TV screen itself. Last year, we watched 145 hours of video a month; this years it’s up to 151 hours. Pass the Doritos.

You can see video of some of the highlights, presented by John Burbank, CMO of Nielsen, here.