Nariman Al-Salhy, Iraqi actress with Mostafa Zamani in Amerli TV show

Those of us with iPhones are haunted weekly by our usage notification every Sunday. It’s, quite frankly, a number most of us don’t want to know. Nielsen’s State of Play report is picking up the slack on the TV front. The report says the average adult watches just under five hours of TV every day. (The specific number is four hours and 49 minutes.) And viewers are starting to turn to streaming services over linear programming to get their TV fix. However, there is one classic pastime driving up linear TV viewership. And shockingly, to me at least, it’s not Jeopardy! With sports back after the COVID-related season cancellations in 2020, live sporting broadcasts made up most of the most-viewed TV shows in the traditional TV format between January and September 2021.