The truth and distraction.

Across all audience segments under 50, television engagement is declining rapidly. The amount of time Americans aged 18 to 24 spend watching traditional TV (inclusive of live, VOD and DVR) is down 37% since 2010 – or 46 fewer hours per month. For 12-17s, TV time is down 31% (or 36 hours). 25-34s are down 28% (or 42 hours). Granted, Nielsen’s figures don’t capture TV Everywhere, but Adobe (the primary TV Everywhere authenticator) reports that only 13M of 250M+ Pay TV watching Americans used TV Everywhere in 2014 (and Q4 actually showed a 2.5% drop in users). Furthermore, had every one of 2014’s 2.1B authenticated streams lasted a full hour[1], it would have increased 2014 TV viewing time by a mere 0.41%.

This time is not simply evaporating. Instead, it’s moving to services such as Netflix (each of the company’s 43M US accounts watches more than 2 hours a day), Twitch (15M American viewers watching 30 minutes a day), YouTube (163M watching 35 minutes a day) and scores of other low cost (if not free) digital-first brands and services.