Entertainment

MORE TVS THAN HUMANS

THERE are now more TV sets than people in the US.

How scary is that?

In 2009, there were nearly 115 million TV homes in the US, each averaging 2.86 TV sets, according to a new Nielsen study.

That computes to nearly 329 million TV sets — more than the entire US population, estimated at 307 million by the US Census Bureau.

And the average number of TV sets-per-home has been growing steadily. It was up 18 percent over 2000 (2.43 sets-per-house) — and up a whopping 43 percent over 1990 (when it was two TV sets-per-home).

So what gives?

“TV sets are, on an inflation-adjusted basis, becoming cheaper and cheaper [to buy],” says Bill Gorman, an analyst with tvbythenumbers- .com.

“If somebody looked at what the cost of an average TV was in the 1960s and looked at the inflation-adjusted cost of an average TV today, it’s a quarter of the real cost.

“And household size keeps getting smaller and smaller,” Gorman says. “So when your household size keeps going down, and the minimum level of TV sets is over two, that’s going to have an effect.”

Among other interesting facts in the study: 82 percent of US households have more than one set, 88 percent have a DVD player and 38 percent have digital cable.