Who’s Watching What?

Now playing on thousands of screens:  TV is NOT dead!  In fact, we’re watching more of it (or at least the thing is on a lot).

The Center for Media Research has just published some  new numbers on media usage from Nielson.  Near as I can tell, almost no one is ever more than 30 seconds away from watching one screen or another.  And the trends are up, up and up.  If Ray Kurzweil is right, you will soon be organically connected to a screen, or really, become a part of it.

Anyhow, here’s some numbers marketers may love:

TV watchers (people tuned in) in US:

2nd quarter 2008:  281,746,000
2nd quarter 2009:  284,396,000 for .9% increase.

Internet users US:

2nd quarter 2008: 159,986,000
2nd quarter 2009: 191,035,000 for a 19.4% increase.

Watching video on a mobile phone:

2nd quarter 2008: 9,004,000
2nd quarter 2009: 15,267,000 for a 70% increase (from low base, but so what?)

We are consuming more and more and more media.  Jacked into the net anyone?