In its new study on how Americans watch video content, Nielsen found that a third of mobile phone owners have viewed video on them. That’s still barely a blip on the numbers who watch on a traditional TV set, but it is part of the growing trend for audience convenience and control that the Nielsen Cross-Platform Report is tracking.
Overall, the average American watches nearly five hours of video each day, 98 percent of which they watch on a traditional TV set. Those sets increasingly are HDTV, however, with 80.2 million in homes, 8 million of which were added during the past year. And even though it remains completely dominant, viewing on a TV has declined by 0.5 percent in time spent compared to Q4 2010.
Nielsen also found that game consoles are on the way to losing the “game” part of their name. These consoles are now in 45 percent of TV homes, an increase of 3 percent over last year, and about two-thirds of them are connected to the Internet. While the report found an increase of 3 percent in those watching TV content delivered via a console, it also found that over half of Netflix subscribers watch on a TV set that is connected via a console or other over-the-top streaming device.
The analysts contend continued growth in this trend is unsurprising, given that Blu-ray players, social gaming and point of purchase capabilities are seamlessly integrated into game consoles.
As for those mobile viewers, 33.5 million mobile phone owners now watch video on their phones, representing an increase of 35.7 percent since last year.
Related links:
Nielsen – blog post
Nielsen – official U.S. site
Photo by Flickr user Gelatobaby, used under Creative Commons license
