Television remains at the center of American life, and whatever threats exist from outside the realm of the Great BoobTube, those threats (including the Internet) are not making huge dents in TV consumption patterns. In fact, technologies like the DVR and on-demand services appear to be gaining momentum, largely making up for declines in live TV consumption.

This is hardly a surprise. Television isn't dying—it's continuing to post strong viewership numbers (and we know that Nielsen and the like capture only a portion of the real audience). The data we have, however, makes it clear that audiences are changing the way they relate to TV. Companies that figure out the best way to service viewers' various demands—better content, served up when they want it, and viewable where they want it—will reap the profits.

According to Nielsen’s "Cross Platform Report - Q4 2011," the average American watches a little more than five hours of video each day, and 98 percent of that video viewing takes place on a television. Note the word average, and note that we are talking about Nielsen here. These are approximations of reality, so the usual caveats apply. Even still, five hours of video viewing is tremendous. Besides "work" or "school," there is no other non-involuntary activity that humans devote themselves to so thoroughly on a daily basis in these United States.

What’s more, Nielsen’s TV data does not track computer usage, and thus does not count the time people spend watching video at their computers, even if their computers are connected to a television. Nielsen's "five hours" of video consumption is comprised of only the following possible sources: cable/satellite/antenna-based TV, video game consoles, DVR, DVD, Blu-ray, and VCR.

This intense amount of viewing time had actually been growing year-over-year for the past several years, until 2011 wrapped up and there was a perceptible dip. Nielsen says that it has detected a decline of 46 minutes per month (~1.5 mins/day) of traditional TV viewing per person, or 0.5 percent of personal viewing time. Where did it go? According to Nielsen, growth in timeshifted TV viewership made up for most of that decline. DVRs and on-demand offerings of non-movie content continue to grow year-over-year, an important point I'll bring up again. Nevertheless, Nielsen reported late last week that the number of households with a TV connected to cable, satellite, or antenna has declined for two years in a row, from 115.9 million in 2009, to 114.1 million last year.

Nielsen hasn't seen declines in connected households in over 20 years, so what does the company believe is causing this? The decline is reportedly caused by two factors: increased poverty brought on by the recession, and an increase in people foregoing television sources in favor of an all Internet-based experience.

Shocker: people want more control over TV

DVR adoption saw a year-over-year increase of 10 percent, resulting in 2011 estimates of 47 million devices in American homes. Video game console growth was only 3 percent, bringing those estimates to 51.2 million. In the span of a year, DVRs have gained ground on game consoles, reducing the gap from approximately 7 million households to just over 4 million. Will DVRs surpass video game consoles in 2013? It seems almost certain, particularly since the next-generation consoles from Sony and Microsoft are nowhere on the horizon.

Equally interesting, Nielsen has reported in the past that DVR users watch more TV than their non-DVR counterparts, and increasingly, they are adopting multiple DVRs for their homes. And when you look at homes with DVRs, video game consoles, and DVD players in them, guess which device gets used the most? DVRs. This is fascinating. As recently as 2008, DVD viewing averages were second only to live television, but now both video games and DVRs see more usage.

None of this is to say that television is not undergoing significant change. But when in television's relatively short history has it been possible to say that it hasn't been undergoing change? Let's not forget that TV did not emerge from a laboratory in the 1920s with 800 channels of high-definition glory and competing distribution schemes ranging from orbital satellites to fiber-optic cables to good old-fashioned bunny ears. Nevertheless, it just feels right to predict that traditional, live TV viewing will indeed decline significantly over time. But there is a very real sense in which tech pundits mistake their friends firing the cable guy for what's happening on a national level, and that's not justified by the numbers. Not yet.

Hardly a week goes by without someone predicting the death of cable, and that's because we're presently in the grips of a classic fairy-tale metastory that posits the empowered Internet user as throwing off the chains of "old media," which invariably includes newspapers, cable TV, the big networks, and others. But such stories have so far had to downplay real growth in cable subscriptions by predicting that younger people won't be signing up in the future, when it's their job to replace the current customers. But we don't know what today's youth will have the opportunity to turn down in 5, 10, or 20 years. And we should be doubly cautious to mistake one distribution medium for television itself.

In the meantime, the biggest contributor to the decline of live TV will be DVR and on-demand services that give viewers what they want, when they want it. It is also a safe bet that Internet services will also greatly erode viewership, but the major players are doing everything they can to blur the distinction between their traditional distribution business and new opportunities afforded by Internet-based services. It's hardly a mistake that some of the largest distributors of television content in the world also tend to be the largest providers of Internet service to the home.