An Upfront Look at U.S. TV Audiences and Trends

With the 2011 TV Upfront meetings between TV studios and advertisers in full swing, Nielsen takes a look at emerging trends in TV viewing.

• Timeshifting continues to be a significant factor in how consumers watch TV. In fact, 38 percent of all TV households in the U.S. have a DVR
• Mobile Video viewing has increased 41 percent from last year. The heaviest users of mobile video are teens ages 12-17 who watch 7 hours 13 minutes of mobile video a month
• Viewing video online also continues to increase. In January 2011 143.9 million Americans viewed video online
• The TV audience for sports is expanding. Record numbers of African Americans, Hispanics and female viewers helped drive the Super Bowl’s audience growth
• The audience overlap between visitors to network and broadcast media sites and social networking & blog sites is significant. In January 2011 alone, 49 percent of social networking & blog site visitors also visited TV network and broadcast media sites
• Television advertising spend was the largest medium for all ad spending in 2010, accounting for $69 billion.

For more information on these TV viewing trends, download State of the Media: Trends in TV Viewing- TV Upfronts 2011