Households watch TV for average of 8.5 hours

By Kim Rahn

Seoul housewife Lee Ja-yeon watches dramas or talk shows on TV in the morning while taking care of her baby girl after sending her boy to preschool. When her son returns home at around 3 p.m., he watches animations. When her husband comes after work in the evening, he watches the evening news and sometimes sports programs.

The television in Lee’s house is on almost all day.

And her family may be about average, as a study showed households watched television for eight hours and 34 minutes per day on average this year.

The research by media monitoring and rating company TNmS showed that the average TV watching hours in 2012 increased by 45 minutes from last year’s seven hours and 49 minutes. The company monitored 3,000 households across the country from Jan. 1 to Dec. 16.

People sat in front of their televisions the most between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., watching TV for 39 minutes on average, followed by between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. and between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m.

By age and gender, men in their 60s and older spent the longest time watching television at five hours and 37 minutes a day, followed by women in that age group at five hours and 26 minutes and women in their 50s at five hours and 15 minutes.

While people in all age groups watched television for longer hours than in 2011, men in their 60s and above spent one more hour this year, the largest increase.

Men in their 20s spent the shortest time watching television at one hour and 32 minutes a day.

People also watched TV for longer hours on weekends than on weekdays. Men in their 40s were found to watch television for four hours and 12 minutes per day on weekends, one hour and 39 minutes longer than on weekdays.