The programming may not be any better, and the advertising is threatened, but the televisions themselves, the hardware, are a growing market. Steve King points that out in his post today called The Death of TV Exaggerated on his Small Business Labs blog.
The average U.S. household has 2.86 televisions. That compares to 2.43 per household in 2000, and two per household in 1990. And that’s more TVs than people, since our last census showed only 2.56 people per household. Research also indicates that Americans watch more TV than ever, an average of 153 hours per month.
I’m guessing that one thing confusing about television trends is the gradual decline of major network market share of viewers and relative growth of internet advertising compared with television advertising. Both of those trends would seem to fit with growing importance of cable alternatives and cable programming.
Another thing that I’m guessing has happened is the impact of the new HD and thin-screen technologies. I was looking at televisions in Costco last weekend and I was shocked at how much prices of HD televisions have dropped since I last bought one a couple of years ago.
(Photo credit: Marilyn Volan/Shutterstock)
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
