Young Americans just aren't watching TV like they used to.
Put another way, the older you get, the more you watch, according to a report due out today from Deloitte indicating that "Millennials," the generation of 14- to 25-year-olds, watches just 10.5 hours of TV a week.
That compares to 15.1 hours for those belonging to Generation X (ages 26-42), 19.2 hours for Baby Boomers (43-61) and 21.5 hours for Matures (62-75).
Lest one assume Millennials are shunning broadcast and cable in favor of watching DVDs on their TV screens -- they're not. They spend less time watching DVDs of movies and TV shows on television sets, 4.8 hours a week, than do Gen Xers.
They are, though, spending more time watching DVDs on a computer -- 1.9 hours a week -- than any other age group.
But while Millennials are watching the least amount of TV, they are spending the most time with media in general, making that up with video games, music and the Internet.
Just don't expect them to spend too much time worrying about such things as news and current events, according to the Deloitte study dubbed "The State of the Media Democracy."
TV does remain the most influential advertising medium going, followed by magazines, the Internet, newspapers, radio and billboards.
Social networking sites are considered separate from the rest of the Internet, and they are the seventh-most influential place to advertise, followed by in-theater ads, DVDs, blogs (again, distinct from the Internet), video games, mobile phones and virtual worlds.
Other nuggets from the study are that Gen Xers are driving DVR usage and to a lesser degree video game usage, as that medium, once frowned on by parents, is more recently being used for "family time."
And the older you get, the less time you spend in movie theaters. Millennials spend an average of 1.8 hours a week at the movies, while it's just one hour for Gen Xers, 0.9 hours for Boomers and 0.7 hours for Matures.
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