Is it really much more though? Whenever I see a number for how much an advertiser pays per viewer, it is typically small.
Let's say an average of 30 hours of consumption per week per person. [1] In a household of 4 people, that's 120 hours per week.
"[Nielsen says the average commercial minutes per hour] was 16 minutes/8 seconds for cable network programming." [2]
Assuming 30 second commercials, that's 32 commercials per hour, or 3,840 impressions per week. Across 30 days, that comes out to be 16,457 impressions.
"$24.76 - The average cost of a thousand impressions for a 30-second commercial in broadcast prime time in 2014, down from $25.06 in 2013." [3]
$24.76 per mille * 16.457 mille views/month/household = $407. That feels unreasonably high. If the CPM were $2, it would still translate to $40/month.
[1] https://www.marketingcharts.com/featured-24817
[2] https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/308248/shorte...
[3] http://adage.com/article/news/costs-ad-prices-tv-mobile-bill...
I would be really keen to see what some actual values are, and the breakdown by age group.
I've recently moved into a new place and we haven't even wired up the TV arial, and even with a Netflix subscription, it's mainly for the kids shows - and even then we heavily restrict the amount of time they can watch TV.
Consumption for my wife and I now is generally Netflix if they have a show we like, or Plex for specific shows we can't get on Netflix - even then this would top out at _maybe_ a couple of hours a week.
Time on reddit/hn is a completely different story...