An analysis of insights from Nielsen's fourth-quarter 2016 Comparable Metrics Report found that while different viewing options continue to proliferate in the viewing landscape, the amount of time spent watching in terms of gross minutes is firmly in the corner of traditional television, with an 82.1% share.

“This analysis is based on actual, behavioural data and that is what makes Nielsen an industry leader,” said Peter Katsingris, SVP, Audience Insights, Nielsen. “What we found was that contrary to the popular narrative that smaller screens were taking away time from the TV glass, when we looked deeper we found that overall time spent viewing on the TV had the most minutes among every age or ethnic demographic looked at. In some cases, the share of viewing was as much as 97%.”

The analysis looked comparably at popular viewing platforms. In gross minutes watched, TV-connected device streaming accounted for 10.3%, 5.1% for PC streaming and 1.8% for mobile phone viewing.

“The fact of the matter is that viewers use the TV screen for the bulk of their viewing and spend more time doing so than all the other platforms combined,” said Tom Ziangas, SVP research at AMC Networks. “Sure, viewers have more options today, but when looking at platforms in a comparative fashion, it’s clear that consumers choose the television as the primary vehicle for content.”