TV & Showbiz

Most People Still Watch TV on a TV

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Last Updated on January 30, 2022

When it comes time to watch TV, are you watching on an actual television, a desktop or laptop or a device? A 2017 report might surprise you.

I feel like I’ve told this joke many times as I’ve talked to colleagues about changes in the TV industry and in how people watch TV, but I don’t know that I’ve told it here before.

It seems I meet more and more people, mostly people younger than I am, who will remark over the course of a conversation about television that they don’t own one.

Being of a certain age, upon hearing such a declaration, I immediately have one thought pop in my mind, no matter how many times someone says it. Without fail, I hear the question ring out somewhere in my brain:

How do you arrange your living room furniture?

Really, in my head, I ask that question.

Because I am of that certain age, I grew up in a home in which the living room furniture was arranged to face the television screen. As I grew up, that television screen gradually went from black and white to color and then gradually grew larger. But regardless of color capability or size, it was against a long wall of the living room and all of the seating in the room, arranged mostly in a semicircle, pointed towards it.

It was the same story in every home I ever visited.

And to be honest, I can’t really recall having visited a home in which there was no television set, so I’ve yet to see for myself the physical accouterments of a room as they would be placed if there were no television present.

But despite multiple viewing options now, which include television screens, computers and mobile devices, that report from Nielsen filed earlier this year indicates that a whopping 92% of the minutes people spent watching TV were watched on a television.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t actually seen a room in which no TV exists. I don’t doubt that they’re out there; I guess the few times I’ve been at someone else’s home, they’ve been in that group that watched on TV.

Slightly more than 5% of the time spent watching TV was done on a computer or PC, while mobile devices — phones and tablets — accounted for 2.5%.

The remaining 10% or so of minutes spent watching TV goes to TV-connected devices, presumably OTT (over-the-top) boxes like Netflix, Hulu or others, or devices like BluRay players.

If I were going to rely on a tablet to watch, I’d want something more the size of an Apple iPad Pro; just because I’d be watching on something other than a TV wouldn’t mean I’d want something on a smaller screen than I started with when I was a kid.

I honestly think people will watch TV on actual TV sets for a long time to come. I think the biggest change we’ll see will be what they’ll be watching and where it’ll be coming from. But I just can’t imagine the TV screen will disappear completely for quite a while to come.

At least, let’s hope not.

How many TV sets do you have in your home? Do you watch TV most often on a TV, a computer or device?

the authorPatrick
Patrick is a Christian with more than 30 years experience in professional writing, producing and marketing. His professional background also includes social media, reporting for broadcast television and the web, directing, videography and photography. He enjoys getting to know people over coffee and spending time with his dog.