Nielsen Report: TV Viewing Hits All-Time High

Nielsen reports that the average American now watches more than 151 hours of TV a month - or about five hours a day - marking an all-time high. That number is up 3.6% from the 145 hours watched during the same time period last year.

Time-shifting is playing a huge role as well. About 29% of households have DVRs and the amount of time spent watching time-shifted TV is up 33% from last year.

Mobile and Web TV are helping consumers take TV on the road, adding to the cumulative time spent. Mobile video alone has jumped 9% from the previous quarter, which should rise as phones continue to get more sophisticated. This should eventually open up new marketing opportunities, but brands may be hesitant to allocate too much money toward testing.

Source: MediaBuyerPlanner

Getting Schooled

From Gordon Ramsay's "perfect scrambled eggs" video to incriminating snippets of your friends doing karaoke, YouTube certainly has it all these days. While some people could argue that YouTube is not exactly a reputable source for most information, you cannot deny the fact that there are some gems buried beneath the exploding mentos/Diet Coke demonstrations and narcoleptic cat videos.

Moshe Pritsker, a former Harvard researcher, decided to turn the popular video sharing site into a vehicle for sharing scientific experiments. Ranging from lizards to stem cells, he has been able to share results and findings with his community in a new way. Check out the wide range of videos on his site called Journal of Visualized Experiments.



My prediction is that YouTube will continue to emerge as a tool for educators. It is a user-friendly method of sharing information that is otherwise difficult to communicate.