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time spent watching tv daily

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DeacHoops

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i know i have asked this before (but i think it was on the quad). but i'm curious again. how much time do you spend watching tv each day? average it over the entire week, because i'm assuming for most people, tv usage spikes on the weekends.

this is prompted because every day, i get an email with headlines from the automotive world. today, one of the articles was talking about the advertising that various auto manufacturers are doing, and how it's changing. apparently a few of the manufacturers are shifting more money to youtube, and away from regular tv. the article says:

"The biggest obstacle to getting TV ad dollars is keeping viewers' attention longer. Google's vice president of content, Robert Kyncl, said in January that YouTube users were spending 30 minutes a day with the service, up from an average of 15 minutes in May. That's still a far cry from the more than average five hours Americans spend watching TV."

the thing that caught my eye the most was FIVE HOURS of tv a day. i honestly don't even know how that's possible.
 
Depends on how much you sleep.
 
urmm... i have the tv on almost all the time i'm at home but i'm not necessarily paying attention to it.

counting netflix at lunch at work, daily show/colbert reruns, afternoon sitcoms (barely watching), sporting events, netflix at night... maybe 2.5 hours a day? it's hard to say. i make sure to spend time exercising and reading as well (napping too, i suppose).
 
If Netflix counts, 2 hrs a day. Otherwise just sports.
 
yeah, count things like netflix and hulu. i know the article is making a distinction (and it's an important distinction in the context of the article), but my question has less to do with the medium that the shows come through, and more to do with how much tv/movies/sports/whatever is actually being watched.
 
1.5 to 2 hours, depending on the night.
 
I actually watch very little on the weekends. Kids, travel, etc. Games are an exception, but that hasn't been a problem this basketball season. We don't have cable, so any watching I do is very specific and focused. There are maybe 3 nights a week that I am home to watch something, and on those 3 nights, we usually watch 1-2 hours of shows or movies on Netflix/Hulu/Amazon after we get the kids down.
 
i'm going to assume that the "on-but-not-paying-attention" time is still captured in that 5 hours, since i'm guessing they got their data from nielsen or somebody who just tracks whether or not the tv is on. but unless somebody is actually just leaving their tv on all day to keep their dogs occupied or something, i still just don't see how it's possible that that is the AVERAGE. that means that for all of us who are 1 hour or less/day, there are people well exceeding 5 hours. do people do nothing else other than go to work and watch tv?
 
I get a couple of hours between ESPN programming (PTI, SC, ATH) and local news. What kills me is a golf tourney. Pebble Beach and Riviera really ran my meter. And if I don't get to go to the Masters, it's a marathon. Hell, I take off work for that. 4 days of golf.
 
I probably average 3 hrs a day and that's with really heavy TV viewing weekends. But that's only counting sitting down with the explicit intention of watching TV. There's probably another 30-60 minutes per day (averaged) where the TV is just on and I'm doing something else.

I have a TV over my shoulder at work and about 20 others are sprinkled around the office, but I don't watch those, they are just background but they are on all day long.

5 hours a day does seem pretty crazy if they mean people are actively engaged in the TV the whole time.

Hmm... let me construct an American worker's day. 30 minutes in the morning (news before work), 1 hour watching cartoons with the children after work 5:00-6:00, 30 minutes watching while cooking dinner, 30 minutes while eating dinner, 2 hours after dinner once the kids go to bed... that gets up to 4.5 hrs without seeming too impossible. Sub an office worker for a stay at home mom and you might add another hour at least in the day of watching soaps alone or TV with the kids. Or replace the hour with the kids of an hour at the gym staring at the TVs there. I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility, and that gets you to around 5 hours without factoring in weekend spikes.
 
Same. My TV stays on most of the time, but I'm rarely engaged by it, unless it's sports. Otherwise, I can probably get how much TV I actually pay attention to down to a few hours a month.
 
Averaged over a week - 2 hours / night. Some nights more (sports), some nights none at all.
 
RollTheQuad06 said:
Hmm... let me construct an American worker's day. 30 minutes in the morning (news before work), 1 hour watching cartoons with the children after work 5:00-6:00, 30 minutes watching while cooking dinner, 30 minutes while eating dinner, 2 hours after dinner once the kids go to bed... that gets up to 4.5 hrs without seeming too impossible. Sub an office worker for a stay at home mom and you might add another hour at least in the day of watching soaps alone or TV with the kids. Or replace the hour with the kids of an hour at the gym staring at the TVs there. I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility, and that gets you to around 5 hours without factoring in weekend spikes.
Click to expand...

i guess that seems fair, although it's assuming that the average worker actually gets home at 5. even if you assume 8-5 job, i'm assuming most people have a commute? and does the average person watch news in the morning? i'm not doubting you, i'm honestly asking. i don't have a tv in my room, and it's not like i do my make-up in my living room. so to watch tv in the morning would mean actually having to get up 30 minutes earlier since i can't really multi-task with it. i guess i just value the extra 30 minutes of sleep over watching the news first thing.

i DVR two shows each week. one is a two hour show, one is a one hour show. i just caught up, but before that, i was getting weeks behind. my tv will go entire weeks without ever being turned on. i guess i just wasn't aware that there was even that much on tv that people WANTED to watch.
 
DeacHoops said:
i guess that seems fair, although it's assuming that the average worker actually gets home at 5. even if you assume 8-5 job, i'm assuming most people have a commute? and does the average person watch news in the morning? i'm not doubting you, i'm honestly asking. i don't have a tv in my room, and it's not like i do my make-up in my living room. so to watch tv in the morning would mean actually having to get up 30 minutes earlier since i can't really multi-task with it. i guess i just value the extra 30 minutes of sleep over watching the news first thing.

i DVR two shows each week. one is a two hour show, one is a one hour show. i just caught up, but before that, i was getting weeks behind. my tv will go entire weeks without ever being turned on. i guess i just wasn't aware that there was even that much on tv that people WANTED to watch.
Click to expand...

And RTQ's situation only gets you to ~9pm. Many people could still watch TV for at least another 2-3 hours before going to bed.
 
OrangeTerrapin said:
And RTQ's situation only gets you to ~9pm. Many people could still watch TV for at least another 2-3 hours before going to bed.
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only if you assume that your kids put themselves to bed. if your kids are young enough to need to be bathed/put to bed, it's much later than that.

we also weren't allowed to watch tv during dinner growing up. i mean, i sometimes will now if i'm eating dinner alone. but if it's a family, wouldn't they shut off the tv?
 
DeacHoops said:
i guess that seems fair, although it's assuming that the average worker actually gets home at 5. even if you assume 8-5 job, i'm assuming most people have a commute? and does the average person watch news in the morning? i'm not doubting you, i'm honestly asking. i don't have a tv in my room, and it's not like i do my make-up in my living room. so to watch tv in the morning would mean actually having to get up 30 minutes earlier since i can't really multi-task with it. i guess i just value the extra 30 minutes of sleep over watching the news first thing.

i DVR two shows each week. one is a two hour show, one is a one hour show. i just caught up, but before that, i was getting weeks behind. my tv will go entire weeks without ever being turned on. i guess i just wasn't aware that there was even that much on tv that people WANTED to watch.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand this. Did you think we have all these channels that show 24 hours of programming without an audience?
 
I've been in homes where the kids watch 10+ hours a day. Usually it was really poor areas where several kids would stay with one mom, she would put the tv on and then do other stuff (cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc.) and kids would watch tv/play with some assorted toys (if they had toys). They didn't really have the means to do other activities and the neighborhood wasn't very safe so the kids could not play outside.

The people watching that much TV aren't Wake Forest 1%ers.
 
PhDeac said:
I'm not sure I understand this. Did you think we have all these channels that show 24 hours of programming without an audience?
Click to expand...

well all this time i've been under the assumption that this is why reality tv shows keep getting made...because not enough people are watching to justify shows with legitimate budgets.
 
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