The Nielsen Company announced that the total number of television households within the U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii) for the 2008-2009 season will be 114.5 million, an increase of 1.5% from last year. Nielsen also estimates that the number of Persons Age 2+ in U.S. TV households will increase by 1.3% to a total of nearly 290 million.
The National Universe Estimates show a continued increase of Hispanic and Asian TV Households in comparison to Total TV Households. Proportional growth of Asian (4.4%) Hispanic (4.3%) TV Households were nearly three times greater than the growth for the Total TV Household estimate (1.5%). Black or African American TV households increased 2.2% over last year.
As always, there were changes in market rankings, but none this time in the Top 20.
The 2008-2009 Local Television Household Universe Estimates and market ranks reflect a continued trend of growth in the Southern and Western U.S. Of the 58 markets which moved up in rank, well over half are in the expanding Southeast or Mountain regions.
Notable increases include:
Austin enters the Top 50 markets, moving from 51 to 49
Indianapolis enters the Top 25 markets, increasing from 26 to 25
Las Vegas continues steady growth moving from 43 to 42
Palm Springs moves up 2 ranks from 144 to 142
Numerous multi-rank increases were contained in the Mountain-region, including Salt Lake City (+2), Reno (+2), Grand Junction-Montrose (+3), Butte-Bozeman (+4) and Spokane (+2).
The full list of Designated Market Area (DMA) rankings and universe estimates is available here.
