So say the people who measure this stuff.
That's absolutely staggering to me. It also makes me wonder how many people do what my family did growing up, where people get home, turn on the TV, and it runs until everyone goes to bed. I can't think of anything less interesting to do, but apparently I'm a minority.
Our habits are pretty lean. We'll watch the world news if we think to turn it on, and maybe two hours of DVR'd stuff after that (assuming it's not summer, when nothing is on). We might do this three days out of the week, so our actual per-day viewing is probably more in the one hour range, if that.
I think if I did five times that, I'd weigh 300 pounds and shoot myself out of boredom.
I've got 2-3 shows I watch regularly for 3 hours a week...and two of those aren't on regularly (Survivor and Lost). I rarely watch much TV in the summer...I'm too busy doing things OUTSIDE>
It's only during skating season my viewing goes up. For example, this week I'm watching Worlds which will total about 14 hours from Wednesday through the weekend. Still, I think even if I include all of the figure skating from November through March it still only averages out to 3 hours a week or less.
That's part of the reason we aren't ready to run out to spend money on an HDTV when our 32 inch monster is still in great shape. It would be different if we used it more.
Were these the stats you were referring to? Interesting to see what the age breakdowns are:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.92e661444313b232e8931de00c29c73b.431&show_article=1
Wow! Funny what you can find by scrolling back up before making a stupid comment.
My TV viewing was vastly different when I was single and lived by myself. I often put the TV on when I got home and it stayed most of the evening. Not because I was actively watching it, but I wanted to background noise. I still find myself wanting to put it on for noise, but with having another person in the house, I now opt for music instead.