DESPITE what all the experts have been saying for years, people are spending more time watching TV than ever, according to a new study.

Since 2001, the average amount of time spent watching TV has steadily increased, says research from Turner Broadcasting (a division of Time Warner, which owns among others, TBS, TNT, CNN and Cartoon Network).

“People are watching more television than ever before,” Jack Wakshlag, the chief research officer at Turner told Medialife magazine.

According to Turner, the average person watched 30.7 hours of television each week last spring. In 2001, the average for the same time period was 27.9 hours.

With viewers 18-49 – a group prized by advertisers – viewing time increased from 24.3 hours in 2001 to 26.3 hours “What’s happening is that the total amount of television viewers keeps going up, despite what other media types say or what people believe or what people tell you when you ask them in a survey,” Wakshlag said.

For years, experts have claimed that TV has been battered by competition for viewers’ time from the Internet, video games, DVDs and other media.

But overall audience sizes for TV are also strong, the study says. Broadcast networks were mostly flat since last year, losing only a fraction of viewers compared to the past. And cable viewership actually attracted 1.2 million more viewers than last season.