LONDON—A new survey highlights just how important media consumption has become—with consumers in the U.K. and U.S. now spending almost 11 hours a day consuming media—and just how diverse and fragmented those habits are.

An Ampere Analysis study finds the average consumer in those markets spends more time consuming media than sleeping or working, and that consumers are increasingly selecting from a rich menu of media depending on their mood, age and needs.

“Today’s consumers have more varied media diets than ever before, selecting from an expanding menu of media depending on what they want in the moment,” Ampere Research Manager Sam Nursall said. “Whether they're looking to relax, discover something new or simply fill spare time, each medium serves a different purpose. That's today's attention economy. For advertisers and broadcasters, understanding those different moments is just as important as understanding the audience itself.”

Key findings include:

• The average U.S. or U.K. adult spends 11 cumulative hours engaged with media products every day. This includes overlapping activities, such as using a phone while watching TV or streaming.
• Streaming services (1:57), social media (1:46) and YouTube (1:35) attract the highest levels of daily media engagement.
• Consumers build their media diets around different moods and needs. Streaming services are most often used for relaxation and immersion, YouTube for discovery and lifting users’ mood, while social media is used to relieve boredom or provide distraction.
• Media diets also differ by age. Gen Alpha (age 11–15) spends the most time on YouTube (1:45) and gaming (1:56), while Gen Z (16–29) spends the most time on social media (1:54) and music services (1:20). Generation X and Baby Boomers spend relatively more time with streaming services, TV channels and live sports.
• Consumers in the U.S and U.K. access an average of 11.5 media platforms every week, including pay TV, streaming services, social media, music streaming, gaming and broadcaster VOD. Streaming services like Netflix or Disney+ account for 4.1 of these services per week. Gen Alpha accesses an average of 13.6 platforms, the highest of any age group.
• Mobile devices have expanded where media is consumed. More than half (55%) of music streaming users regularly listen outside the home, alongside 34% of podcast listeners, 20% of social media users and 11% of gamers.
• Mobile devices have also driven higher daily media engagement by making simultaneous media use easier. In the U.S. and U.K., for example, more than one-quarter (28%) of Netflix users regularly watch the service on a smartphone.
• One-third (33%) of YouTube users said they use the platform when they “want something on in the background.”

The Ampere Analysis “Attention Economy” survey was fielded in the U.S. and U.K. among respondents aged 11 to 64.

NEW YORK—The popularity of NFL games is largely responsible for continued seasonal momentum in TV viewership into October (measured Sept. 29-Oct. 26), according to Nielsen’s The Gauge report, its monthly snapshot of total TV and streaming consumption.

The NFL simultaneously drove a 4.3% increase in broadcast viewing as well as gains for key streaming services, it said.

The impact of NFL coverage in October was most apparent when isolating viewership by day. Sundays exhibited the largest viewing shift across categories for the month, as broadcast averaged a 5.3-point gain to climb from an average of 22% of TV on Monday through Saturday, to 27.3% of TV on Sundays. By contrast, cable and streaming viewership experienced the opposite effect, with the time spent watching up slightly Monday-Saturday and lower on Sundays.

The NFL also drove increases on game days and overall for several streaming services.

Peacock exhibited a 19% monthly viewing uptick in October and represented 1.6% of TV. Its share on Sundays, however, averaged 2.0% of total TV.

Paramount+ viewership was up 8% in total versus last month, and the streamer’s average share of TV increased from 1.2% Monday-Saturday to 1.6% on Sundays, when it simulcasts CBS.

Amazon Prime Video, home of “Thursday Night Football,” gained three points against its monthly average on game days, jumping to 6.4% of TV on Thursdays in October.

Broadcast led all TV categories with a 4.3% monthly viewing gain in October, which resulted in 0.6 additional share points and 22.9% of television—building on its lead over cable and marking its largest share of TV since November 2024 (23.7%).

Despite the performance, broadcast sports viewership was down compared to September (-6.4%) but still accounted for nearly one-third of all broadcast viewing. NFL games on CBS, Fox and NBC claimed the top three overall program rankings with over 20 million viewers apiece (L+7). The fall TV season continued to unfold in October as well, as broadcast drama viewership saw a 28% increase over September led by “Tracker,” “Matlock” and “NCIS” on CBS, “High Potential” on ABC and “Chicago Fire” on NBC, to represent the largest monthly gain within the category.

Streaming viewership was up 2.4% month-over-month, outpacing the increase in overall TV usage (1.3%) to gain a half-point and represent 45.7% of TV watch-time in October. Surging football viewing on key streaming platforms helped to fuel the increase, while most non-NFL streamers saw decreases on game days. Netflix bucked the trend and grew its share of TV on Sundays. Netflix netted out with 7.9% of TV in October, but on Sundays specifically, its share climbed to 8.2% of TV. This was partially on the strength of its original series “Monster: The Ed Gein Story,” which was the most-streamed title of the month with 5.4 billion minutes viewed.

Cable watch-time in October tracked closely with overall usage (+1.2%), but the category’s share of TV slipped by 0.1 due to rounding to finish with 22.2% of total TV. Cable sports viewership increased nearly 50% versus September and represented 14% of the category’s viewing total.

Feature films were a bright spot for cable, exhibiting a 7% monthly increase in October as viewers sought out their favorite spooky movies amid the Halloween season. News continued to lead cable viewing, owning nearly a quarter of the category’s share despite a 3% drop from the preceding month.

More information is available on The Gauge and Nielsen websites.

LOS ANGELES—With the process of reopening the country underway, linear TV is seeing a decline in the viewership numbers it experienced during quarantine, per a new report from VideoAmp.

For markets that were among the first to open—Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, San Antonio and others (see chart below)—they’re weekly average viewing times have fallen to pre-COVID levels. In these markets, viewing peaked in the “early quarantine period” of March 9-April 12, but have declined to numbers actually slightly lower than January and February of 2020 during the period from May 4-24.

Cities that are still partially closed—New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago and others—have also seen declines in weekly viewership compared to the early days of quarantine, but were still 7% higher from May 4-24 than pre-COVID numbers, according to VideoAmp.

It also appears that “news fatigue” has set in among viewers. VideoAmp’s study of news networks—CNN, Fox News and MSNBC—shows that there was a significant spike in weekly ratings compared to this year’s January average during mid and late March. However, as of the latest data on May 18, ratings for these networks had reached their lowest during the quarantine period; only CNN remained above its pre-COVID level.

VideoAmp also shared that one of the few parts of TV viewership that did increase during the quarantine period was weekends, caused by a lack of sports content.

However, despite the drop in traditional linear viewing, VideoAmp says that app-based OTT streaming viewing numbers remain higher than their pre-COVID levels, according to John Chasin, VideoAmp’s chief measurability officer.

For more information, visit www.videoamp.com.  

SAN JOSE, Calif.—TiVo is introducing some new capabilities to its TV Viewership Data product, announcing the optional integration of data from Kantar and Drawbridge. These new offerings are meant to provide additional insights to demographics, consumer preferences and behaviors.

The addition of Kantar ad data provides both programming viewership data as well as advertising viewership for millions of U.S. households. With the Drawbridge Identity Graph, customers can link viewership data with associated mobile ad identifiers so to extend the reach and measurement of advertisements and marketing across pay-TV, OTT and digital platforms.

“There’s no reason why TV can’t be as targetable and measurable as other platforms, and give marketers the ability to reach and report on viewership, engagement and conversion across the entire cross-channel consumer journey,” said John DeGennaro, vice president of enterprise partnerships with Drawbridge.

These new attributes are available immediately with the TV Viewership Data product.