Survey: Americans 'Drastically' Increase TV/Online Consumption

With "staying in" the pandemic-driven new norm, tuning in has increased big time for the majority of respondents to a new Piplsay survey of over 60,000 people. 

Source: Piplsay

Source: Piplsay

Asked how their TV or online media consumption has changed, 63% said it had increased, with only 6% saying it had gone down.  

A quarter of the respondents who said it had increased said that increase was over five hours per day; 27% said by 3-5 hours, and 35% said by 1-3 hours. 

Asked how they were entertaining themselves while in quarantine/lockdown/self isolation/shelter-in-place, movies led the list, followed closely by music, gaming, and TV shows. Not surprisingly, given that virtually all professional and amateur sports are on hiatus, watching sports came in at 7%.  

Related: The Latest News on COVID-19 Impact on Communications Industry

The survey was conducted in March among U.S. resident age 18-plus. It received 66,908 online responses. 

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.