How Much TV Does the Average American Watch? (2021–2025)
Recent statistics suggest the rising popularity of connected television (CTV) in the United States has come amid falling consumption of traditional television. CTV refers to conventional television sets that are integrated with internet features that allow viewers to access digital content.
Advertising revenues on these two platforms are indicative—while CTV ad spend is expected to rise every year from 2023 to 2027, it’s the contrary for traditional TV ad spend, which is projected to decrease by 9.3% over the same period.
Does TV viewership data align with this trend? To find out, we need to dive into the question: How much TV does the average American watch per day?
|
Year |
Average time spent watching traditional TV |
Difference |
|
2021 |
196 minutes (3:16) |
|
|
2022 |
190 minutes (3:10) |
-6 minutes |
|
2023 |
182 minutes (3:02) |
-8 minutes |
|
2024 |
175 minutes (2:55) |
-7 minutes |
|
2025 |
168 minutes (2:48) |
-7 minutes |
How many hours of TV does the average American watch: 2024–2025
According to the latest statistics on time spent watching television, the average US adult is forecast to spend 175 minutes a day (or two hours and 55 minutes) viewing traditional television programs. This excludes online videos and refers to live programs, shows played on digital video recorders, and other pre-recorded videos.
The expected average time spent watching TV in 2024 marks a seven-minute decrease from 2023’s numbers and it is the first year that time spent watching traditional TV is set to fall below three hours a day.
The average time spent watching television a day is projected to continue falling in 2025, by another seven minutes, to 168 minutes, or two hours and 48 minutes.
How many hours of TV does the average American watch: 2021–2023
In fact, the numbers show that the average hours spent watching traditional television every day have fallen since 2021. That year, viewers spent 196 minutes, or three hours and 16 minutes, watching traditional TV. This fell by six minutes, to 190 minutes (three hours and 10 minutes) in 2022.
In 2023, the average time spent watching television fell by as many as eight minutes from the previous year, to 182 minutes (three hours and two minutes)..
Time spent watching television: digital video vs. traditional TV
From 2021 to 2025, daily time spent watching traditional television is projected to plummet by 28 minutes. In contrast, Americans are spending increasingly more time consuming digital videos. In 2021, they spent an average of three hours a day enjoying digital videos. By 2025, this is set to grow to four hours, marking an overall rise of 33.3%.