For the first time, SVOD services have caught up to DVR penetration in U.S. households, according to a recent report from Nielsen for the first quarter of 2016.

The milestone means that half of viewers now have subscriptions to services such as Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime, and those numbers are growing as live plus time-shifted TV viewing has remained stable at just over five hours per day.

Many households have hopped on both the SVOD and DVR wagons, with close to 30 percent having access to both, which is a 20 percent increase from last year. Meanwhile, the total daily media consumption among U.S. adults has grown by about an hour across different devices, platforms and technology.

Millennials are leading the way by spending “nearly as much time using digital devices as a whole as they do watching TV,” according to the study.

As the daily use of smartphones and tablets have increased by more than 60 percent over the last year, many traditional TV networks are making the shift as well—from CBS’s All Access and NBCUniversal’s Seeso subscription VOD service, to MTV’s Snapchat channel and TCL’s broadcast of a live birth on Facebook.

Nielsen also noted that the heaviest users drove a majority of the increase in media consumption. For instance, 83 percent of content consumed via smartphones, 87 percent of content consumed through PC streaming, and 71 percent of content consumed through a TV-connected device stemmed from the top 20 percent of users.

This is compared to traditional TV, where only 52 percent of content consumed comes from the top 20 percent of users.

Age is also a major factor when it comes to how Americans are watching:

Media Consumption for 18-34 Demographic

- Digital: 39 percent

- Connected TV devices: 15 percent

- Live TV: 29 percent

- Radio: 17 percent

Media Consumption for 50-plus Demographic

- Digital: 21 percent

- Connected TV devices: 8 percent

- Live TV: 53 percent

- Radio: 17 percent

READ MORE: Variety, TVNewsCheck

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