TV screen accounts for over 92% of US adult viewing

The analysis focused on the share of total gross minutes of consumer viewing across TVs and TV-connected devices in addition to PC, smartphone and tablet video in the fourth quarter of 2016.

It revealed that TV accounted for an 82% share of gross minutes, TV-connected devices accounted for a 10% share, PC video for 5%, smartphone video for 2% and tablet video for 1%. 

“This analysis is based on actual, behavioural data and that is what makes Nielsen an industry leader," said Peter Katsingris, senior vice president of audience insights at Nielsen.

"What we found was that contrary to the popular narrative that smaller screens were taking away time from the TV glass, when we looked deeper we found that overall time spent viewing on the TV had the most minutes among every age or ethnic demographic looked at. In some cases the share of viewing was as much as 97%.”