Frank Barnako (MarketWatch) submits: If you have an Internet connection at home, odds are you're watching less television. Maybe as much as 25% less, depending on the broadcast or cable network, according to research now being distributed to TV executives by Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. [NTRT].
"It's not that people are abandoning TV for the Internet. Sometimes, they do both," said Mainak Mazumdar, the company's vice president of Product Marketing and Measurement Science. "We only have 24 hours a day ... (that's) a finite amount of time to consume media." He added, "Yahoo (YHOO) users are watching less. MySpace.com (NWS), much (less), the difference is 20%."
Mazumdar said company's first unified TV-Net report "provides a solution for the networks to say to advertisers 'We are getting incremental ratings for our programming on the Internet and want to be compensated for it.'"
The Nielsen analyst said the results are "phenomenal" and that broadcasters are smart to put their programming on their Web sites. He cited data which showed visitors to Yahoo and MySpace watch more of the programming on Bravo (GE) and Comedy Central (VIA) than does the average viewer. "That's not surprising," he said. "They're kind of lifestyle channels."
Via: http://media.seekingalpha.com/article/18317
