Why Customers Still Give TV a Good Reception

Sure, everyone seems to have his or her eyes glued to a mobile screen these days. That doesn’t mean regular old TV viewing has gone extinct. In fact, the average American adult watches five hours and four minutes of TV per day, according to Nielsen rating service research—and, surprisingly, the majority of that programming is not DVR’d but watched on broadcast TV at the time it is originally aired.

A good chunk of TV viewing takes place outside the home—in offices, waiting rooms, gyms and more. When Nielsen began rating viewership in bars, airports and gyms, they found that out-of-home viewership added 8% to total viewing among adults ages 18 to 34, mostly in sports and news programming.

The reasons people watch are as varied as the public places in which they do so:

TV can provide a bonding experience. Watching TV is inherently social; 93% of viewers say they engage in co-viewing on the big screen. “Before TV became a domestic technology, it was used as a way of creating community in public places,” says Jack Bratich, associate professor of Journalism and Media Studies at the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Sometimes people just can’t wait to watch. A third of business professionals admit to catching up on a TV show or game during the workday, according to a recent survey.

TV relieves waiting-room tedium and anxiety. 64% of survey respondents said having TV in a medical waiting room would make wait time more bearable.

TV makes a hotel room more homey. Yes, guests demand WiFi in their rooms, but they still want TV: respondents to a Hotels.com survey ranked TV 4th on a list of Top 10 Most Important In-Room Amenities.

TV makes exercise more pleasurable: People who watched TV while working out on a treadmill reported a greater enjoyment of exercise.

TV can boost people’s mood: Viewers who experienced even a short engagement with nature programming reported significant increases in positive emotions like joy and contentedness, and substantial decreases in nervousness, anxiety and stress.

The most popular type of TV show is drama (33%) followed by comedy and participatory/reality (tied at 18%) and news (15%). Sports came in 4th with 10%. “The big question for TV programmers is always, ‘Who’s the audience and how do we engage them?’” Bratich notes. “Business owners are in the best position to answer the question because they know their customers so well.”

Spectrum Business TV offers a wide range of local, national, entertainment and other channel lineup options.