Our Connected Society

Today’s U.S. households are more connected than ever.

Here is my Top 10 list of media factoids from a recent Nielsen 2010 Media Industry Fact Sheet.

• 114.9 M homes have at least one television – almost 30% have 4 or more
• 103.6 M homes have either cable of satellite television
• 36.7 M homes are equipped with a DVR (Digital Video Recorder)
• The average American watches 31.5 hours of television per week – up 20% in 10 years
• 223 M Americans ages 13+ are mobile phone users
• 21% of American households are cell phone only homes
• 195 M active Internet users in the U.S. – over 93% have broadband access
• 56% of Internet users are active on Facebook – average use of Facebook is 6 hours per month
• Americans average viewing 11.2 B video streams per month – average time spent watching videos is over 200 minutes per month
• 73% of U.S. households own a device specifically used for gaming – 45% of active gamers are female

So if you want to connect with today’s connected consumers you must execute a multi-platform communications program.

What is on the media horizon for 2010?

With the media landscape continuing to fragment, advertisers need to look carefully before they commit for 2010.

The good news is that media consumption by consumers is at an all time high.  Nielsen  recently reported that U.S. viewers watched on average 4 hours and 49 minutes of television per day. Viewership is up 1.4 percent from the previous season and up 20 percent from just ten years ago.

Digital video recorders allowing for time shifted viewing, the continuing expansion of cable network offerings coupled with more television sets per household contributed to the increase.

Print media is also showing positive growth. The Magazine Publishers Association reported magazine subscriptions are on the rise. Subscriptions were up from 322 million in 2007 to 325 million in 2008. Plus, for the first six months of 2009, subscription numbers increased.

The Fitch Ratings Report recently published their outlook for 2010 for the Media and Entertainment sector. They predict that the worst of the advertising downturn has passed. With upcoming political races and the Olympics, ad inventory will tighten and ad pricing will stabilize in 2010.

Fitch’s predictions include:

• Radio is more than likely to be flat
• Outdoor should see a recovery by mid-year
• Newspaper and Yellow Pages will continue to struggle for share with new online competitors
• Consumer magazines are likely to be down due to excessive titles and shifts in advertisers’ sentiment to print
• Broadcast television, think Channels 2, 4, 5 and 17, will recover faster due to increase demand
• Cable networks should see a modest rebound

eMarketer, a digital publisher tracing Internet marketing trends, looks for increased spending by U.S. advertisers on digital assets for 2010.

• Online video ad spending is projected to grow to $1.4 billion in 2010, a growth of over $400 million from 2009
• Search advertising spending including paid search, contextual text links and paid inclusion is projected to eclipse $11.4 billion, growing $600 million in one year
• Mobile ad spending is expected to reach $593 million with a single year increase of 43 percent

Three screens, more watching

The latest numbers from Nielsen’s Three Screen report showed that Americans are consuming media in greater numbers than ever.

For the second quarter of 2009 as compared to 2008:

• Watching television in the home increased .9%
• Watching time shifted television went up 32.2%
• Using the Internet grew by 19.4%
• Watching video on the Internet jumped 12.4%
• Mobile subscribers watching video on a mobile phone was up 70%

And even with the growth of time spent with video in alternate formats, the average American television consumption was at an all time high of 141 hours per month.

Our media appetite seems to know no bounds. Let’s hope at least some of the 141 hours was spent watching programming that was capable of broadening the mind and not just the viewer’s backside.