TV VIEWING IN THE U.S. HAS INCREASED FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2012

According to a new report from Emarketer, traditional television viewing has increased for the first time since 2012 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly half of American consumers, 46%, say they've already run out of content to watch, read and listen to. The number has increased by 33% from a couple of weeks ago and 30% at the end of March. But eMarketer predicts the numbers to go back down by 2021. Viewership will decrease by 4.9% decrease by 4.9% and 7.2% in 2022, although it’ll remain above 2019 levels. Viewership will continue to decline in 2021.

Americans will watch an average of 19 more minutes per day, a total of 2 hours, 46 minutes, marking the first time that figure will have increased in eight years. That represents a 12.6% increase from 2019. Traditional TV will also add around 8.3 million viewers in 2020, an increase of 3% from 2019, the first positive moment since 2011. Emarketer counts someone as a viewer if they watch or record something on TV at least once a month. “Consumers will undoubtedly be fixated on their TVs more in 2020 due to stay-at-home orders, continued interest in up-to-date news on the pandemic and, increasingly, more leisure time due to increasing unemployment rates,”  said Emarketer Forecasting Analyst Oscar Orozco.

The findings are self-reported responses. One of the factors that may be causing a feeling of a lack of content in the suspension of most productions, resulting in a higher paucity of content than usual, despite there being a high demand for it. The outbreak has resulted in the success of several productions, like Netflix's limited reality series "Tiger King," The report correlates with an annual report conducted by FX Networks showing that the supply of new scripted TV series has surpassed the number of hours people have to watch them.

Mindshare has also stated that consumers are also actively limiting the time they spend with media to avoid reading, watching, or hearing news about COVID-19. Currently, 51% of Americans say they are limiting their time with media to avoid it, which is up 38% a couple of weeks ago, and 37% at the end of March.  Advertising has also taken a major hit from the coronavirus outbreak. It was initially expected for 2020 to result in a 2% bump in TV ad spending, eMarketer forecast advertising will drop between 22% and 29% in the first half of 2020. To put that in money terms: That would be a decline between $7.5-$9.9 billion, or $10-$12 billion less than eMarketer originally expected. According to Alexis Fragale, director of consumer insights at Mindshare USA, the fatigue of news related to the pandemic has led to an interest in other genres and general activities. "When we look at what types of media people are consuming more of since the outbreak, this week, in particular, we’ve seen the biggest increases in non-streaming entertainment like listening to podcasts and the radio, playing video games, and shopping online,"  he said.