New findings from The Nielsen Company show kids aged 2-5 now spend more than 32 hours a week on average in front of a TV screen.

Nielsen today released “C3″ ratings data for television viewing in the first week of the 2009-2010 TV season.

Americans are watching more TV than ever, and the increasing penetration of DVRs has likely contributed to increased viewership.  But “Must See TV” doesn’t mean that people are gathering around their TV anymore during primetime on a Thursday night.  Appointment viewing is now when the viewer wants to watch it thanks to DVRs.  As of March 2009, 30.6 percent of households in Nielsen’s National People Meter Panel have a DVR, up significantly from just 12.3 percent in January 2007.
A key factor to this expansion is the integration of DVRs into …

A ground-breaking study conducted by Ball State University’s Center for Media Design and Sequent Partners found that younger baby boomers – those 45-54 years old – are the top consumers of video media.
Conducted on behalf of the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence, the study ran over the course of a year and used a custom media collector program developed by Ball State.  Researchers gathered a wide range of data usage of any of the four categories of screens: traditional TVs (including DVD/VCR and …

Population trends have clear implications for those involved in the media and advertising industries. There are now more than 114 million U.S. TV households, with immigration continuing to play a major role in population growth. U.S. Census estimates predict that by the year 2050 more than half of the U.S.
population will be non-white.
Nielsen’s “Ethnic Trends In Media,” is a comprehensive report profiling African-American, Asian, Hispanic and White households in the U.S.  This report examines household characteristics, television usage, timeshifted viewing and popular programming genres for each group.
Key findings include:

Household …

Viewing of video on television, Internet and mobile devices — the Three Screens — continues to increase and has hit record levels.  Nielsen’s fourth quarter A2/M2 Three Screen Report reports that the average American watches more than 151 hours of TV per month, an all-time high.  They are also watching several hours of video on other devices: those who watch it on the Internet consume another 3 hours of online video per month, and those who use mobile video watch nearly 4 hours per month on mobile phones and other devices.
“The …

Apple’s iPhones have doubled their penetration rate versus a year ago, according to Nielsen’s most recent Home Technology Report.  iPhone penetration hit 5.9 percent in Q3 2008, up from 3 percent in Q3 2007.
In addition to the increased popularity of the iPhone, Nielsen found that DVRs such as Tivo are showing up in more homes, with penetration up over 50% versus a year ago.  Households with teens were over 30 percent more likely than the average household to own or rent a DVR device.
Download the full report here.
Nielsen’s Q3 2008 …

Consumers are still investing in home entertainment despite cutting back in other areas, according to Nielsen’s SportsQuestTM Survey.  The telephone survey, conducted among 1,865 respondents in November and December 2008, asked about a number of questions with respect to changes in their spending habits and how those changes may have affected how they viewed TV-related spending such as cable, direct satellite, video on demand/pay-per-view and DVD purchases and rentals.
The difficult economic conditions have forced most Americans to think about how they spend their money, so it is little surprise that …

Nielsen has issued a year-end look at the most popular trends among Americans during 2008, covering everything from the top TV programs to the most popular consumer packaged goods.
William P. Young’s ”The Shack” was the top-selling fiction book through November 30.
Among non-fiction books, “A New Earth,” by Eckhart Tolle was the top-seller.
The audio version of Tolle’s “A New Earth” was the top-selling audio book of the year.

Nielsen has issued a year-end look at the most popular trends among Americans during 2008, covering everything from the top TV programs to the most popular consumer packaged goods.
It’s official: Americans love their carbs.  The Bread and Baked Goods category ranked number one for 2008 — both in terms of consumer purchases and retail sales.  According to Nielsen, 99% of U.S. homes purchased bread/baked goods at least once during the 52 weeks ending June 28, 2008.  The Bread/Baked Goods category raked in $18.3 billion in sales through November 1.  Other …