Cable is King but Streaming Stands Strong When it Comes to Americans' TV Viewing Habits

Do you still call it "watching TV" when you're not actually using a TV to do it? That's a question that may be coming up more and more today, given the increasing use of streaming as a viewership option.

While over three-fourths of US adults (77%) say they regularly watch television shows via either cable (55%) or satellite TV (23%), over four in ten say they regularly watch via streaming (43%) including two-thirds of millennials (67%). What's more, streaming seems to be slowly gaining ground on more traditional modes when it comes to the ways Americans most often watch television programs (though it's in no danger of overtaking them in the immediate future).

At 85%, the percentage of Americans saying they most often watch TV on, well, a TV (live feed, recorded or on demand), sans streaming, is down from 89% in 2012. Streaming, meanwhile, is up from 20% in 2012 to 23% today. This preferential shift is strongest when looking at millennials, among whom non-streaming TV preference has declined from 77% to 68% while streaming preference has grown from 41% to 47%. Nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) say they're watching more online/streaming television programming now than they were in 2013, while 37% say their online/streaming viewership is no different than last year and 7% say they're watching less this way now than a year ago.

Among those who regularly watch television shows via streaming, three-fourths (74%) use a computer to do so, while just over half (55%) use a television (whether via a set-top box, a game system or a television with integrated online capabilities). Nearly four in ten (37%) watch on tablets, including more than six in ten tablet owners (63%). Three in ten (30%) watch on smartphones, including just over four in ten smartphone owners (42%).