People Spending Equal Time on TV, Web

By Antone Gonsalves
TechWeb.comMon Jan 30, 6:57 PM ET

The average online consumer spends the same amount of time on the Web, as the do on TV, a market research firm said.

Respondents to a U.S. consumer survey said they spend 14 hours a week on line, which is the same amount of time in front of a television, JupiterResearch said.

"Even the most intensive users of newspapers and magazines spend less time reading these publications than they do online or watching TV," JupiterResearch analyst Barry Parr said in a statement. "TV and newspaper companies risk losing an entire generation of users unless they immediately start promoting their online products,"

The Internet is displacing the use of other media, such as radio, magazines and books. The latter is suffering the most, with 37 percent of all online people reporting that they spend less time reading books because of their online activities.

The report also found that intensive online users are the most likely demographic to use advanced Internet technology, such as streaming radio and RSS feeds.