TV Channel Usage Drops To New Low, But Networks Persevere: Just as the 2003-04 TV season is getting under way, new research unveiled Wednesday at a MediaPost conference in New York shows that while the number of TV channels received by the average household is greater than ever before the percentage of those channels that are actually viewed has hit a new low.
The new Nielsen data, which was revealed by CBS Executive Vice President-Planning & Research Dave Poltrack during his keynote at MediaPost's Forecast 2004 conference, finds the average household now receives 102 channels but watches only 15 of them, or 14.7% of what's available to them.
That's down from 26% of the 19 channels available to the average household in 1985 and down from 16% of the 89 channels averaged as recently as 2001.
