Despite the fact that more than half of the homes in the United States have three or more television sets, the number of Americans that own a TV is dropping for the first time in 20 years. A combination of the switch from analog to digital TVs, economic recession and the growing popularity of watching TV online has led to a sharp decline — throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, about 99 percent of American households had at least one TV, but now less than 97 percent do.
More facts about TV:
- On average, Americans spend about three hours a month watching video online, an amount that increased by more than 50 percent from 2008 to 2009 and was expected to increase even more dramatically in 2011.
- The number of people who watch video on mobile phones also went up by more than 50 percent from 2008 to 2009.
- Added together, the time the average American spends watching television adds up to more than 50 days per year.