IPTV Use on the Rise

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A recent Nielson study showed that Internet protocol television (IPTV) adoption is growing. Americans spend 35 hours a week viewing content across various screens. However, 94 percent of that viewing time happens on a television set.

IPTVs allow viewers to directly connect to video streamed from the web through their television. As of February 2011, only 4.7 percent of homes had an IPTV. That number has more than doubled to 10.4 percent in February 2012. Expect these numbers to continue to increase as IPTV functionality is built into current and future television models.

"It's not a decline; it is a change in device," said Pat McDonough Nielsen's SVP Insights Analysis and Policy, who's featured in a video associated with the report. "We are still on the Internet when we are watching television but we are using this different device to do it. People are talking about computer use going down. Perhaps the device is changing but the pattern of media consumption is not changing."

The data also showed that the usage of the Internet feature in IPTV-enabled homes has also jumped in the last year. In October 2011, only 2 percent of households had the Internet function enabled through their IPTV. As of February 2012, the number rose to 5 percent usage in Internet-enabled homes.

It is interesting that such a small percentage of households are hooked up to the Internet through IPTVs. However, it may not be as surprising considering blue ray players and video game consoles also allow access to the Internet on televisions.

"About a third of consumers are hooking them up," said McDonough. "It's not that we are not interested; we already have Internet on [television sets]. Think about it, you're getting it through your blue ray player. Half of us have video games attached to those sets. Many of them are on our wireless networks already."