Netflix says its subscribers watch an average of 2 hours a day - here's how that compares to TV viewing

Netflix

Netflix's "Russian Doll"

• The average Netflix subscriber spends two hours a day on the service, Netflix's VP of original content Cindy Holland said earlier this week.
• That's the same amount of time as adults aged 18-34 spend watching live and time-shifted TV, according to Nielsen.
• But the average adult 18 and older spends four hours a day watching TV, and those over 65 watch nearly seven hours a day.

Netflix pulled back the curtain a tad this week on its subscribers' viewing habits.

Netflix's VP of original content, Cindy Holland, said that the average Netflix user spends two hours a day on the service, while at the INTV Conference in Jerusalem on Monday.

How does that compare to the average TV viewer?

Two hours is about how much time US adults aged 18-34 spend watching live or time-shifted TV, according to Nielsen's most recent audience report (for the second quarter of 2018, which was released in December).

But older viewers watch lot more TV than that.

Adults 35-49 watch TV for an average of 3 hours and 41 minutes a day. 50-64 year olds watch for 5 minutes and 38 minutes a day. And those over the age of 65 watch TV for a whopping 6 hours and 55 minutes a day on average.

All this brings the average of adults 18 years and older to four hours and 20 minutes a day.

While Americans 65 and older likely have more free time available to watch TV, young people are also watching plenty of video content through platforms other than traditional TV.

For teens, their top two sources of video are Netflix and YouTube. As cable-TV viewing among teens has dropped, Netflix and YouTube account for over 70% of their time watching video, according to a Piper Jaffray survey from October. Cable represents just 16.4% of their video time.

The chart below breaks down the TV viewing habits:

Shayanne Gal/Business Insider