151 hours of TV-watching every month!

How long does the average American watch TV per day?

Well, yes the answer came before the question. This is the latest TV watching statistics on how much television Americans are watching and I just read it from a Los Angeles Times report about the most recent survey that was conducted by Nielsen, Co.

One hundred and fifty one hours— that’s 5 hours a day of TV on the average for the last quarter of the year 2008, which was  up 3.8% from 145 hours average from 4th quarter of 2007 the survey said.

This finding was way higher than the figure of 3.8 hours per day or a measly 120 hours per month TV watching by Americans that reported by another research firm last year.

They (Nielsen and LA Times) explain the increase in average time by citing the rising interest of people in the US presidential elections and the winter season. They also cited the findings that there is an apparent increase in the number of television units people are putting into their homes which is giving every household member easier access to TV entertainment which Americans seem to be needing more of these days.

“The timing of a lot of things has converged, what with the winter coming on, the darker nights, less money to go around and people entertaining at home more,” said Susan Bandura, director of strategy at San Francisco advertising agency Hoffman/Lewis.

Also contributing to the increase are the steady growth in TV programming and the number of TVs in households, Nielsen spokesman Gary Holmes said. The average U.S. household now contains more televisions than people, which means that family members or roommates can watch their favorite shows alone.

“Everyone has their own niche show they want to watch,” he said.

Furthermore, the increase in people watching TV on internet and other media like Tivos, mobile phones, etc. Teenagers are contributing in a major way to the increase in TV because they spend about 6.2 hours watching video content on the go through their mobile phones. One surprising finding in the survey concludes that senior American citizens actually watch the most indicating a trend with respect to age.

…Teenagers (12 to 17) spend 103 hours watching TV a month, whereas senior citizens (65 and older) spend 207 hours. That’s about seven hours a day — enough for two baseball games.

Read more about the TV-watching survey report.

 

Is the Plasma TV on its way out?

Plasma TV

All this time I thought plasma televisions were more energy efficient. Apparently, I’m quite wrong in this notion as it seems there are factions moving to abolish plasma screen TVs because of their power guzzling habits, which, on the average, consumes more electricity than its other big screen counter parts (LCD and rear projection).

A report on CNet about the comparative power consumption of big screen televisions states that plasma TVs, on the average, consume about 50% more than LCDs and rear-projection displays. They obtained this data from an experiment involving a sample of 139 televisions. They measured each unit’s energy consumption while being used and while it is not being used (in stand-by mode).

Power consumption compared:
Average for plasma: 339 watts
Average for rear-projection: 211 watts
Average for LCD: 213 watts

The above results indicate that indeed plasma TVs can cause an increase in your monthly electricity expenses which in an indirect way, is seen as bad for the environment (since most energy used today come from non-renewable sources that has definite impact on the planet).

Hence, this is part of the reason why some European regulators are moving to remove plasma TVs from the market to arrest the ever-increasing power demands of modern households.

Plasma TVs are known for superior picture quality especially in color rendition and shadow detail but one of their turn-offs (no pun intended) is their power needs. However, plasma manufacturers seem to be fighting back by trying to meet energy standards now being imposed by the US, Europe, Australia and other countries to somehow attempt a comeback versus the increasingly popular and energy efficient LCD televisions.

I personally don’t care too much for shadow detail while watching TV shows and would always opt for something that’s energy efficient but with very acceptable picture quality. The LCD seems to be opening up the gap in this race as its technology improves day by day. It would be sad to see the plasmas go away but they better draw up a good plan to improve energy efficiency or there will be nowhere for them to go but obsolescence.