Channel change: Nielsen grapples with new TV world

Television is dead! Long live television!

The traditional television universe shrank for a second straight year, with the number of American TV households falling to the lowest level since the 1970s, according to ratings giant Nielsen.

TV penetration stands at 95.8 percent of households, down from a high of 99 percent two years ago. Last year, Nielsen recorded the first such drop in TV households — defined as those with at least one TV set that receives signals via cable, satellite or old-fashioned rabbit ears.

Nielsen doesn’t count consumers who watch TV shows on their phones, tablets or computers as traditional households. As a result, around 5 million homes don’t get traditional TV service, leaving 114.2 million households for the current 2012-2013 TV season.

While virtually every American family has a TV set, more people are using it to play games, watch DVDs or stream Netflix.

The change in viewing habits has prompted Nielsen to revisit its definition.

“The gradual decline in the number of TV households in the US has prompted the need for an open conversation around the definition of a TV household,” Dounia Turrill, a senior vice president at Nielsen, said. “Nielsen is working with its clients on the evolution of the current definition of a TV household to account for the evolving media landscape and content-delivery options available to the consumer.”

Despite years of rising TV viewing, Nielsen’s latest study showed a drop in the time spent in front of the tube. During the first three months of 2012, viewers watched six fewer minutes of TV — four hours and 38 minutes a day — than in the comparable period last year.

“We are starting to see fundamental differences in the way people are consuming video,” said Horizon Media researcher Brad Adgate. “The TV won’t go the way of the land line in homes, but you look at the top five most popular YouTube channels and they’re watched by under 35-year-olds.”