We Watch TV FIVE HOURS a Day on Average... WHAT?

Covering technology events is a breeze, but sometimes - as with today’s #TVNext panel in Boston at Hill Holliday - you sometimes run into a challenge. Today's event is a challenge for me because I've already heard some astonishing facts and it's only 10AM. We now watch TV five hours a day, on average, in America.

Let me paint the picture and then I'll share where that five-hour figure came from.

Sitting on the 35th floor at a State Street high rise, about 100 or so broadcast pros, media reps, social media folks and marketing people have gathered to hear where TV is headed. Specifically, they are anxious to find out the new ways in which viewers consumer content and embrace entertainment.

From technicolor to betamax to all home-entertainment devices, the crowd has been presented this morning with a historical perspective of how people watch TV. Even something we take for granted these days - the DVR - is now something that seems dated. Especially when you can access all your shows remotely via handheld devices wherever you go.

Here's a quick recap of the first few speakers and the keynote at this summit on the future of television.

Baba Shetty - the Chief Media and Strategy Officer at Hill Holliday - told the crowd, "Television sometimes gets pigeonholed as this thing that was.”

He assured the folks in the audience that that is NOT the case. He said there's a ton of innovation around networks and content and he promised that today people would learn about the new entrants bringing technology-based devices to market that provide different access to content. These are things like streaming Netflix boxes, Apple TV, Boxee boxes and more.

During the keynote from James McQuivey, VP Principal Analyst of Forrester Research, we learned that we've all watched 25,000 hours of television by the time we are 21.

“That’s huge,” he said. In the past - and even now, television fulfills our needs.

He added, “It educates, it informs, it connects us socially.”

McQuivey said we have urges and “television starts us off fulfilling those needs.”

And these days, the most recent research says we’re watching TV five hours per day.

In closing, McQuivey said, "This is not a story about an industry's decline."

I'll share more on this later today - but in the meanwhile, you can watch the summit live stream at...... http://ustre.am/rtdu