by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese
Source: www.mediapost.com,July 2019
The share of TV channels the average American household actually tunes to continues to fall, dropping to 6.6% in 2018, according to a Research Intelligencer analysis of data from Nielsen’s Total Audience Report.
That’s less than half the share of channels tuned to ten years ago, and reflects the ongoing fragmentation of linear TV, as well as a “paradox of choice” as the number of alternative viewing options grows via non-linear options such as OTT and subscription video-on-demand services.
The data also helps explain why cord-cutting has gotten, as one analyst put it, “freakin’ ugly,” because it reveals how dispensable most linear TV channels have grown.
Of the 191.8 channels available to the average TV household in 2018, only 12.7 — or 6.6% — were actually tuned.
That’s down an average of nearly five channels from 2008, when the average TV household tuned to 17.3 — or 13.7% — of the 129.3 channels that they received.
