Tablet use while watching TV surveyed

Two U.S. reports on people who use their tablet computers while watching television have come up with significantly different figures, analysts say.

One report, from Forrester Research, said 85 percent of tablet owners use their tablets while watching television, Slash Gear reported Thursday.

Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, who compiled the report, dubbed the tablets "couch computers," Slash Gear reported Thursday.

However, tablet use while watching television is a fairly new phenomenon and another report, this one from Nielsen, pegs the percentage of simultaneous TV/tablet users at just 30 percent, Slash Gear said.

Whichever figure holds up in the long run, researchers say it is obvious tablet computers are becoming a fixture in U.S. living rooms, and some analysts say tablets could eventually eat into some segments of the television market, particularly for smaller screen units, as another recent survey found 32 percent of tablet owners saying they wouldn't buy TV sets 24 inches or smaller.