Americans who watch the most video online tend to watch less TV, according to The Nielsen Co., a finding that overturns a long-standing belief that people who watch more programming do so over all devices.
The ratings agency said Wednesday that starting last fall, it noticed a segment of consumers who were starting to make a trade-off between online video and regular TV. The activity was more pronounced among people ages 18 to 34.
The finding could be troubling to television networks that have been putting shows online in order to reach new audiences. The hope was they wouldn’t diminish viewership on television, where they still make most of their advertising revenue.
Nielsen polled about 2,600 people who said they watched videos online in the first three months of the year, and divided them into fifths, based on how much they watch. The fifth that watched the most video online consumed nearly 19 minutes a day, and also watched the least amount of television, at about four hours and 32 minutes a day. The fifth that watched the least online video—at less than a tenth of a minute a day—watched the most TV at four hours and 50 minutes.
Nielsen said such a finding doesn’t indicate that people are about to drop their pay TV packages to watch video only online, a notion known as “chord cutting.” About 91% of TV households still paid for a TV subscription in the first quarter, and most of the changes had to do with people switching between cable, telephone and satellite companies.
Overall, TV viewing crept up by 0.2% from a year ago to 158 hours and 47 minutes a month, while video watching on the internet jumped 35% to four hours and 33 minutes per month. Watching on mobile devices such as smartphones rose 20% to four hours and 20 minutes a month.
Nielsen’s senior vice-president of insights and analysis, Pat McDonough, said the study suggests that advertisers have to cast a wider net to make sure they’re reaching the audiences they want.
“The real implication for advertisers is you need to think broadly,” she said. “You need to think about reaching people on the screen that they’re available on at that time.”
