Happy World Television Day

In 1996, the United Nations proclaimed November 21 World Television Day. It’s a time to celebrate the medium and encourage it to continue living up to its promise to educate, inform and be a storyteller for the world, to the benefit of us all.

So much has changed in the 26 years since “ER” and “Seinfeld” dominated the U.S. airways and cable TV was battling satellite TV. We are truly living in the most remarkable period in television history to date.

In 1996, the television set itself (the tube, the telly) was the only access point to a world of scheduled television programs. Today, technology such as mobile phones, Smart TV’s and a growing list of streaming services has powered a rapid and dramatic shift in the television ecosystem.

With streaming services – for the first time ever – viewers are in control of what they watch, when and by what medium they watch it. Audiences have flocked to streaming and it is now the predominant category by which TV programs are consumed.

Streaming and content?on the rise

Recent data from The Gauge from October 2022 shows that streaming viewership in the U.S. accounted for about 37.3% of total television consumption compared to 28.4% last October, now outpacing broadcast viewership which declined to 26% from 28.4% last October and cable viewership which dropped to 32.9% from 36.9% last October.

The trend is similar across the globe. For example, according to data from eMarketer, the percentage of subscription over the top (streaming) video viewers in Brazil is projected to steadily increase over the next four years, from 33.8% of the population today to 40% in 2026. In India, eMarketer projects the average time spent daily with digital video will increase from 2 hours and 33 minutes in 2020 to 3 hours and 42 minutes in 2024.

For viewers, the depth of content available today has also brought on something unthinkable in 1996 – choice fatigue. According to Gracenote, as of September 2022, audiences in the U.S. have access to nearly 923,000 unique video titles across linear and streaming channels, up from about 646,000 such titles in December 2019. Our State of Play report found Americans last year watched nearly 15 million years’ worth of streaming video content.?

Unprecedented opportunity

This media renaissance represents an unprecedented opportunity for content producers and advertisers. Never before has such a broad, worldwide audience been accessible so easily and so immediately.??

The industry is changing rapidly in this new digital-first world, and everyone – from audiences to advertisers to content producers – is scrambling to navigate it. At Nielsen, we’re doing our part by providing holistic viewership measurement reflecting all audiences, on all screens, 24 hours a day so our data can inform programming decisions and audience pursuit.

We join the United Nations today in lifting up the medium of television for both its wonderful history to date, and the exciting digital-first future that awaits. Happy World Television Day.