Early in 2020, as the pandemic was getting underway, Americans flocked to their TV sets at a rate unseen in years. Initially, US households were glued to the news, as uncertainty over the coronavirus drove viewership. In the following weeks, the TVs mostly stayed on, as the initial wave of lockdowns kept Americans stuck on the couch with lots of new time to kill.
Thanks mainly to these factors, our Q2 2020 time spent forecast projected that traditional TV would reverse its longstanding user and time spent declines, at least temporarily. As it turns out, we were half right.
We previously estimated that the number of TV viewers ages 18 and older would increase by about 10 million throughout the year. Instead, cord-cutting unexpectedly accelerated, viewership declined by roughly 10 million, and 2020 ended up with 20 million fewer adults watching TV than we thought (landing at 204.2 million). However, those who stayed ratcheted up their time: Among US TV-watching adults, daily time spent with TV increased by a robust 9.2%, to 4 hours, 31 minutes (4:31) per day. Thanks to this boost by those who kept their cords, TV time among the whole adult population increased year over year in 2020 for the first time since 2012, jumping from 3:27 in 2019 to 3:34.