Home TVs still first choice for viewing

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WASHINGTON, April 24 (UPI) -- Although tablets and smartphones provide digital access to video, 91 percent of U.S. consumption still comes on traditional TVs in real time, analysts say.

While consumers increasingly are watching video on more devices and at more locations, TV at home still remains most Americans' primary source, Nielsen Vice Chairman Susan Whiting said in written testimony intended for the Senate Commerce Committee.

While 166 million Americans watched video online in October 2011, and more than 117 million accessed the Internet through mobile devices, such viewing is still mostly in short bursts rather than large blocks of time, she wrote.

Compared with the average monthly total of viewing on mobile devices and computers of a little under 9 hours, the average viewer watches 146 hours-plus of traditional television content on a home TV set, Whiting wrote in her testimony, a copy of which was obtained by Multichannel News.

YouTube and Netflix dominate online video viewing, accounting for over half of the 4 hours, 31 minutes of average streaming video per month, she wrote.

And viewing video on smartphones is up more than a third in just the past year, she said, showing "consumers are saying unequivocally that online video will continue to play an increasingly larger role in their media choices."