Traditional TV Viewing By Generation, Q1 2011-Q3 2012 [CHART]

Chart - Traditional TV Viewing By Generation

There’s a strong perception that with the rise of social media, mobile device usage, and other such digital trends, youth have put TV on mute. According to the latest cross-platform report from Nielsen, young people are indeed watching less TV, but it’s not a seismic shift, yet. The 18-24 group, for instance, watched a weekly average of about 22 hours of traditional TV in Q3 2012, about 2 hours less than they did in Q3 2011. That’s about 17 minutes less per day.The trend does appear to be moving towards less TV viewing by this group, though. That 17 minutes per day difference year-over-year in Q3 is up from a 15 minute difference in Q2, and a 13 minute gap in Q1.

Whereas in Q2 2012, all age groups were watching a bit less TV than the prior year, the same was not true in Q3. The 50-64 and 65+ groups both watched a bit more TV in Q3 2012 than in Q3 2011, while the 35-49 crowd spent almost exactly the same time. And although 25-34-year-olds watched about half an hour less TV in Q3 2012 than in Q3 2011, that’s down from a gap of about 1 hour in Q2. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.