Even though consumers still spend more time watching television than on the Web, more than 80 percent of broadband users say they visit Web sites for personal reasons on a regular basis and 63 percent say they watch television, a new report by research firm Media-Screen found.
Media-Screen examined how and where broadband users access entertainment content and information online, including learning about new artists, buying related products, reading reviews and using a programming guides.
It found that media habits of modern consumers are shifting in the wake of iTunes, YouTube, MySpace and other social networking sites.
San Francisco-based Media-Screen‘s report, called “Netpop-Play,” also reveals that younger users, age 13 to 24, spend more than half of their spare time online, a trend that has increased for all ages of broadband users over the past two years.
The report also found that search engines and social networking sites are gaining in popularity and influencing as many people as magazines and newspapers.
Forty-eight percent of younger users who took the survey said they learn about new entertainment through user-generated content sites, including online communities, user-generated reviews and video-sharing sites, while only 25 percent said they learn about new entertainment through television.
