This post also appeared in The Tennessean, where Concept Technology has a bi-weekly feature in the Business section.

We own 289 million televisions in the United States. That’s more than two TVs per household, and with consumers spending just shy of 145 hours a month watching, it might be time to kick baseball to the curb and start calling television America’s national pastime.

While the overwhelming majority of viewers watch television through traditional sources — broadcast, cable and satellite — according to Nielsen, the number of households watching TV through such sources decreased by 1.3 million within the past year.

More and more families are moving away from traditional television subscription services to devices such as Apple TV and Roku, which are digital “boxes” that let us stream content from popular online video and music channels through our televisions.

These new technologies mean that gone are the days when couples had to huddle in front of a laptop screen to watch an instant Netflix flick on movie night, or rely on inferior computer speakers when listening to music on Pandora or Spotify.

More importantly, an Apple TV or a top-of-the-line Roku player only costs $100; that’s a one-time fee, which compares favorably with a monthly cable bill of $100 or more. Tack on a few $10 monthly subscriptions to services such as Amazon Prime and you’re still better off.

With the promise of more live channel offerings and increased competition from established names such as Google TV and Xbox, Internet-connected televisions make sense for many viewers.

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