As we move more and more into a digital world where we get just about everything we need from the Internet, well entertainment wise at least, we are finding the more traditional outlets for our entertainment needs taking a hit. We have seen it happen with music as digital downloads have surpassed the sale of physical media, like CDs, for the first time ever and we are starting to see it happening in other mediums as well with the increasing sale of e-books as a strong indicator.

One of the buzz words that is making the rounds in this changing landscape is ‘cord cutters’ and it refers to those people who have ditched the standard way of getting their television entertainment courtesy of cable companies, and instead, rely on getting their television show fix via the Web using services like Netflix and Hulu.

This of course has cable companies and television networks more than a little concerned but as much as tech pundits might like to think otherwise, and as Nielsen’s new report show, traditional television isn’t going anywhere. That isn’t to say that ‘cord cutting’ isn’t on the rise, it is, but traditional cable television subscriptions are still the way that 90% of Americans get their TV fix.

One of the interesting interpretation of the numbers from Nielsen is that is would appear that those people who are sticking with cable subscriptions watch more television, at 4 hours and 39 minutes per day, than those who have cut the cord and rely on the Web for their ‘television’ fix; which according to Nielsen is about half the time than traditional TV viewers.

As Frederic Lardinois at Silicon Filter noted on the news this ‘cord cutting’ demographic will likely change as younger viewers grow up.

What will definitely matter in the long run, though, is that younger Americans (12-34) now watch less TV per day than before. Teenagers in 2011 watched nine minutes fewer day than in 2010, for example, and young adults between 18 and 24 watch six fewer minutes per day. The only reason overall TV watching is up, according to the NYTimes’ Brian Stelter, is because those over 65 are watching more TV “than ever before.”

As these younger viewers grow up, traditional TV will likely never quite play the same role for today’s teenagers and young adults as for their parents. Video content, after all, is video content, no matter whether you stream it to a tablet, a Boxee box or your phone. Indeed, watching live TV probably feels rather antiquated to many younger Internet users.

Personally if it wasn’t for my wife telling me that I had better sleep with one eye open if I cut the cord I’d be getting all my entertainment strictly from the web.

Nielsen says cord cutters on the rise but traditional television not going anywhere is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Video Consumer Mapping Study found that 66% of all video is still consumed via live television, and that online video only accounts for 1% of all video viewed. The study claims that consumers tend to overstate how much time they spend on because “it seems new and cool,” where as watching TV doesn’t have as much social cache so people tend to under-report how many hours they watch.

The results come at the same time comScore video data for April shows a 16% increase in video watched online vs the month before. comScore found that 16,785,432,000 online videos were watched in the United States from 151,652,000 unique users.

Whilst it would be easy to suggest an ulterior motive to the results, particularly given a strong representation of media companies on the Council for Research Excellence, the study has a far more substantive range of verifiable flaws.

The initial consideration is how the data was gathered to begin with. The study used “American media consumers, primarily former Nielsen TV People Meter panelists.” Former is the key word there, because TV panel data is gathered through “people meters,” electronic devices that record viewing habits. In theory, it’s difficult to understate TV viewing when there’s an electronic device gathering data on what you are watching; and yet this study specifically picked people who didn’t have the devices.

Then there’s the problem of sample size and location. From the study:

[the study included ] a final sample of 952 observed days. This included 376 individuals in the Core sample from Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia and Seattle. Observing those people twice yielded 752 observed days. In addition, for the Media Acceleration portion of this research, 100 people were observed twice and yielded 200 observed days in the Indianapolis DMA.

376 or maybe 476 people in total (it’s not clear if the 100 are originally counted in the 376). The results of 476 people are the key behind a finding that online video is overstated, and some of the United States largest markets, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and even Austin, Texas (all four known for their tech communities) were completely ignored.

People who play with statistics will always argue that you can use such a small sample size to come to such conclusions, and that may be true to a point. But does a sample so small and geographically limited really reflect the overall market in the United States? Does the sample size fairly support a conclusion that goes against what every other survey and study is suggesting?

Of course it doesn’t, but that was hardly the point to begin with. This study was funded indirectly by media companies, and was to consider the following statements (direct from the study)

- The 30 second spot is dead
- No one under the age of 30 watches TV, They’re all streaming video on the internet.
- No one watches live TV, Everyone is Recording TV shows on their DVRS

Really outrageous propositions to begin with, and you don’t need a $3.5 million study to show that none are true. If you start a study with such outrageous suggestions, its little surprise then that you end up with an outrageous, and ridiculous result.

If you want to read the study, you can download it here (pdf)

Fail: new study claims online video massively overstated is a post from: The Inquisitr

Even with all the dire warnings of newspapers failing and ad revenues declining there has been good news from the latest Nielsen figures. In the first quarter of this year newspaper sites have attracted more than 73.3 million monthly unique visitors on average. This is a 10.5 percent increase over the same time last year.

Additionally visitors to these sites generated more than 3.5 billion page views per month which is an increase of 12.8 percent over last year at this time. Nielsen says these are the highest numbers since the Newspaper Association of America first started keeping numbers like this.

So how does this compare to Craigslist the biggest Internet classified ad site that many say has been the biggest contributor to the decline of newspaper advertising. Well according to Mathew Ingram on Twitter Craigslist gets 5 times the entire American newspaper industry in pageviews.

If this is indeed the case then I don’t think that Craigslist has much to worry when it comes to the newspaper industry.

Craigslist still kicking newspaper butt is a post from: The Inquisitr

According to the convergence panel, the heaviest users of the Internet are also among the heaviest viewers of television: the top fifth of Internet users spend more than 250 minutes per day watching television, compared to 220 minutes of television viewing by people who do not use the Internet at all.

Nielsen found that the reverse is true as well– the lowest consumers of television have the lowest usage levels for the Internet.

Nielsen also found that nearly 31 percent of in-home Internet activity takes place while the user is watching television, demonstrating that there is a significant amount of simultaneous Internet and television usage. Conversely, about 4 percent of television viewing occurs when the consumer is also using the Internet.

Now In understand why my daughter and son are not shutting off their computers even when watching TV… including me.

TV viewing and Internet use go hand in hand is a post from: The Inquisitr