Turner: Viewers Watching More TV In 2010

By: Nov 30 -0001 - 1:00am

The obituary for traditional television viewing is far from being written as the number of hours viewers watched the boob tube increased during the first half of 2010.

Despite increased viewing of cable network content on other platforms such as the web and mobile, viewers watched an average of 34.3 hours per week from Dec. 28, 2009 to June 13, 2010 — slightly above the 34.1 hours viewed during the same period in 2009 and nearly two hours more than the 32.6 hours watched in 2006, according to Turner Research analysis of Nielsen data for the second quarter of 2010.

Viewing among ad-supported networks was also up during the second quarter to an average of 17 hours, slightly above last year’s 16.9 hours. On the flip side, viewing among the four broadcast networks was down to 8.4 hours a week, compared to 8.5 hours in 2009 and 9.9 hours in 2006.

While viewership has increased, so has the penetration of DVRs into the home.  DVR’s are now in 36% of all households, nearly three times the DVR penetration in 2006, according to Turner. Among total viewers, 38.7% of all watchers have access to a DVR, up from only 4.2% in 2006.

What are viewers watching? More viewers tuned into USA Network in prime time during the second quarter than any other basic cable network.

USA rode the summer return of its top scripted series Royal Pains and Burn Notice to finish tops among all basic cable networks in prime time during the period of March 29 to June 27, averaging 3.2 million viewers. TNT finished a distant second, averaging 2.44 million viewers and barely edging out Disney Channel, which drew 2.42 million viewers, according to an Disney-ABC Television analysis of Nielsen data.

Fox News averaged 1.9 million viewers to settle into fourth place, followed by ESPN, which posted averaging  1.7 million viewers for the period.

Kids-targeted Nickelodeon made it 61 consecutive quarters as the most watched cable network on a 24-hour basis, averaging 2.2 million viewers.  Disney Channel finished second with 1.6 million viewers, followed by Nick at Nite (1.5 million viewers), USA (1.4 million) and TNT (1.3 million).