When it comes to total time spent watching either YouTube or television, television still seems to be winning out. Totals taken at the end of 2012 show that the average American was spending roughly 22.3 hours per month watching YouTube. When divided over a 30 day period, that amounts to about 44.6 minutes per day. But the average American also watches nearly four hours of television per day. Clearly, in this case, television seems to be receiving much more time viewed than YouTube. But another factor that has to be taken into consideration is how much of the time spent watching television is taken up in commercials.
YouTube videos often do have a commercial at the beginning, but it’s about 30 seconds worth, and it doesn’t take up as much time as the commercials sporadically placed throughout television shows. Whether time spent watching commercials with the volume on mute should count as time spent watching television is up for debate, but the statistics still favor television insofar as the amount of time the average American spends enjoying it.
(Click to enlarge)
Source: YTD YouTube Downloader