With a combination of direct observation and innovative, high-tech documentation, a pioneering study reveals what media Americans really use and how they use them.

The $3.5 million yearlong Video Consumer Mapping (VCM) study, conducted on behalf of the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence (CRE) by Ball State's Center for Media Design (CMD) and Sequent Partners, examines how people use TV, computers, mobile devices, and other media.

All told, the study generated data covering more than three-quarters of a million minutes, a total of 952 observed days, making it the largest and most extensive observational study of media usage ever conducted. Ball State’s CMD was selected to lead the project, in large part, because of its previous success with the influential Middletown Media Studies I and II.

"What differentiates this study from all other attempts to measure video exposure at the consumer level is its scale, the range of media covered, and the fact that it is focused on consumers first and the media second," says Mike Bloxham, director of insight and research for CMD.

“It’s not a study about TV or the Web or any other medium—it’s about how, where, how often, and for how long consumers are exposed to all media.”

The study’s surprising findings, released during a major press event March 26, 2009, in New York City's famed Time-Life Building, include:

• TV users were exposed to, on average, 72 minutes per day of TV ads and promos—dispelling a commonly held belief that modern consumers are channel-hopping or otherwise avoiding most of the advertising in the programming they view.
• Despite the proliferation of computers, video-capable mobile phones, and similar devices, TV in the home still commands the greatest amount of viewing, even among those ages 18-24; thus, in the eyes of the researchers, appearing to dispute a common belief that Internet video and mobile phone video exposure among that group (and the next one up, ages 25-34) were sizeable in 2008.
• Rather than young people and retirees, consumers in the 45-54 age group average the most daily screen time, just over 9½ hours. The average for all other age groups is strikingly similar at roughly 8½ hours—although the composition and duration of devices used by the groups during the day varied.
• Even in major metropolitan areas where commute times can be long and drive-time radio remains popular, computing has replaced radio as the No. 2 media activity. Radio is now No. 3 and print media fourth.

Learn more about our groundbreaking research, and see how the results have been covered in the media.