The average U.S. household gets a record 104.2 television channels these days, but watches on average only slightly more than 15 of them, according to a new survey from Nielsen Media Research.
Those figures are up from an average of 96.4 channels per home in 2005, when 15.4 were watched with any regularity, meaning about 10 minutes a week.
An estimated 47% of all U.S. homes with televisions got more than 100 channels, according to the survey.
Interestingly, over the last three years, as the number of channels increased, the number of channels watched hovered in the 15 range, meaning more options didn't translate into more channels being watched.
That also adds a new twist to the age-old argument about there being nothing good to watch, especially if viewers are only dipping into a small percentage of the total number of channels available.
For comparison, in 1985, the average home got just 18.8 channels, although Nielsen did not provide a figure on how many channels were watched.
Nielsen estimates there are 111.4 million homes with TV's in the country, with the average home having 2.9 television sets. Some 82% of those homes have more than one set.
