The number of households in the US that have ditched the television set have hit 5 million according to new data. The Nielsen group have released a new report called, trends in the Zero TV household that show a growing number of people are turning onto internet TV instead.

Zero TV is a term Nielsen have come up as part of their Cross-Platform Report and refers to viewers that have abandoned traditional TV such as network, cable, and satellite, and get their television fix from streaming video using mobile devices or computers.

The report shows that in the US, over 5 million households have cut the cord compared to 3 million back in 2007. That still equates to a pretty small portion of the market with 95% still watching traditional TV, but it shows that internet TV is a growing sector.

And even those claiming to not watch TV, a large portion still own a television say Nielsen, but it is being used for activities such as console gaming, watching DVDs and surfing the Internet. More than 75 percent of the cord-cutting group still has at least one TV set, Nielsen found.

Some of the zero TV households have just given up on watching TV, whilst others (67%) have emigrated to new platforms. Of those 37% use a computer for streaming, 16% via the Internet (not sure what that stat means as all streaming is via the internet?), 8% make use of smartphones for video, and the final 6% make use of tablets. Respondents cited both the cost and a lack of interest as reasons for abandoning traditional pay TV services.

And even among the cord-cutting, zero tv fraternity, they have just stopped watching television on a television, the TV itself isn’t obsolete. It’s still a platform that is used for playing on games consoles or watching DVD’s.

The report shows that internet TV services from companies such as Netflix, Amazon Instant/Prime and Hulu still cannot supply the quality of content that traditional TV does, but they are gaining ground. As these streaming services continue to create their own original content (such as Netflix with House of Cards), the decision to cut the cable gets that much easier.

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