As someone who writes about television for a living, I like to have an informed opinion about the television shows I write about (whether you agree with the informed opinion is another matter all together). As such, I watch a lot of television. I’ve never really done the math on it, but on an average heavy week of television, say in November, I watch about 30 shows a week. Let’s say that’s 15 hour-long dramas (usually around 48 minutes a piece, if you average network and cable running times) and 15 30-minute shows (at about 24 minutes). That comes out to about 18 hours a week. Around 20 weeks of the year, you can also add 8 hours of NFL, per week. So, on my heaviest television watching weeks, I watch about 26 hours of television.
Weirdly, that’s not nearly as much as the average American, according to Nielsen statistics.
The average American over the age of 2 spends more than 34 hours a week watching live television, says a new Nielsen report — plus another three to six hours watching taped programs.
Woah. So, including taped programming, the average American watches 37-40 hours of television per week (or the number of hours that “American Idol” airs each week). Add to that the fact that the average 35-49 year old spends another seven hours of week goofing around on the Internet, and that’s basically 47 hours of screen time.
There are 168 hours in a week. Let’s say the average person sleeps 7 hours per night (if you have newborns, you can laugh along with me at that number). That’s 49 hours per week, plus 56 hours per week at work (8 hours per day). So, work + sleep + Internet/TV = 152 hours. That means, conservatively put, the average American only spends 16 hours per week — or two hours per day — not sleeping, working, or watching television, and since the average commute for Americans is 46 minutes a day, it’s really only one hour and 14 minutes each day you leave yourself for showering, eating, exercising, bar-hopping, shopping, sex, and bathing.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that; I’m not judging. I’m just saying, if you’re watching that much television each week, make sure you’re watching something good and not Honey Boo Boo.
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And live encapsulates talent shows, news and sport, yes?
While I’m sure many people aren’t working only 8 hour days, I don’t think the average person is working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Ah hell. You’re right. My maths are all wrong! (BUT IT’S STILL A LOT OF TV).
No kidding. What scares me is not the people who said they watch 34 hours of live TV a week, but the people who answered more than that to make 34 the average number.
Also, it sounds like a lot, but I bet most people answered the question more as “How many hours a week is the TV on.” Just because I’m ‘watching TV’ doesn’t mean I’m also not surfing the web, working out, fapping, etc.
Ditto.
Don’t forget those of us who are unemployed and have the TV on in the background while filling out job applications. I’ve definitely been exposed to more than my fair share of Maury and The Price is Right lately.
Let’s take an average 9-5 job with an average commute of 30 minutes each way. That’s 8 hours of the day. The average person gets 8 hours of sleep (11pm to 7am). Let’s assume they watch local news, national news and Prime Time every night … 7-11pm … 4 hours a day times 5 … 20 hours. That means, according to this study, that the average Amercian spends 14 hours out of the 32 non sleeping weekend hours watching tv. I really hope that’s not true.
Well, if you watch football all day Sunday (like me), that’s about 9 1/2 hours right there. And that doesn’t include any of the pregame or highlight shows. So 4 1/2 hours of TV on a Saturday sounds about right, especially if you watch a college football game or two.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Neilson counted the hours my dad watches tv, passed out on a lounge chair next to a half empty bottle of irish whiskey.
34 hours of TV per week? Amateurs!
Viewing studies like this are usually measured off of how long the TV is on, so “absent” viewing is absolutely recorded. You also have to remember, this isn’t a survey – it’s based off Nielsen’s TV data, which means you’re biased towards: 1. homes that absolutely have a TV and 2. homes that are willing to jump through hoops for Nielsen’s measurements.
1 explains the low internet numbers, as a lot of people (like myself) who don’t own TVs end up spending far too much time on the internet. 2 helps explain why the TV viewing is so high – people who care enough to get the box installed, deal with an extra controller, or fill out a diary tend to be people who watch more TV (and thus care more about the ratings). In terms of determining what people view, that’s an ok bias for Nielsen’s sample to have, but it does inflate overall viewing numbers.
And lastly, if this is done using diary data (rather than just metered data), viewing is going to be even more inflated. People are notoriously lax at filling out Nielsen’s diaries, and they tend to overreport viewing on things like local news. For example, someone might say they watch the 6pm news every night – except in reality, sometimes they’re working late, or they have to pick up the kids at soccer practice, or whatever. They still write it down in the diary, though, because in their mind, that’s their everyday routine. With that said, most of these national reports are based on purely metered data, so this may not matter.