Binge-Watching TV Went Up By 17 Percent This Year

If you feel like you watched way more TV than you normally do this year, you're probably right. According to VerizonSpecials.com’s 2nd Annual TV Watch Time Report, Americans watch an average of 3 hours and 56 minutes of TV per day in 2020. That’s an almost 17% increase over last year’s average. With the way 2020 has gone, though, is anybody surprised?

In order to find out how much TV Americans watched this year, VerizonSpecials.com used “TV watch time data” from the most recent American Time Use Survey state-level estimates (2015–2019). They then found each state’s favorite TV genre using the Google Trends data from January 2019 to December 2019. All fifty states plus the District of Columbia were included in the study. Here's what else they discovered about our TV watching habits in 2020.

Out of all 50 states, Mississippi watched the most TV this year. Not only that, Mississippi also jumped viewership by 25 percent compared to last year’s report. Telenovelas were also quite popular this year, especially in Florida, Texas, and California. For all fifty states, however, sports was the most-searched TV genre of 2020.

 While many states unsurprisingly saw an increase in TV watching this year, Americans living in Alaska watched the least amount of TV over the past 12 months. Utah and Idaho were not far behind, either.

Photo: Getty