The study suggests that while Madison Avenue has become transfixed by other digital media, especially online, DVRs, and personal media devices such as the iPod, video games already are having a profound impact on the way people spend time watching TV for a very simple reason: Most video game consoles are connected to the primary or secondary TV set in TV households, and they are used primarily during traditionally peak TV usage time periods - especially among some of the most important and elusive TV audience demographics.

While Nielsen has not yet released explicit audience shares for individual console systems and game titles - it will begin doing so later this year - the new data reveals that console usage peaks and ebbs in a pattern that is almost identical with traditional TV dayparts, rising during prime-time and declining during wee hours. Among men 18-34, for example, TV usage peaks between 9:00 and 9:59 at night with an estimated 10.9 million watching TV at that hour. Console usage, meanwhile, peaks between 10:00 and 10:59 at night, with 814,000 mean 18-34 active users between that hour.

The new data also offers the first glimpse of the "unduplicated" reach among various demographics using conventional TV and gaming consoles, which also suggests that advertisers and agencies may soon begin planning the impact of consoles alongside other conventional TV platforms like broadcast and cable TV.

"Among key console demographic groups, the reach and frequency is quite staggering," says the Nielsen report. "Three out of every four boys aged 2-11 (75.8%) used an in-home video game console for at least one minute in the fourth quarter of 2006. Those boys 2-11 averaged 2 hours and 30 minutes of usage per usage day. Almost half of all men aged 18-34 used a console at least once for a period of one minute or more during the fourth quarter (48.2%, or 16.1 million). Men 18-34 who did use their console, averaged 2 hours and 43 minutes per usage day."

The report notes that consoles also are having a profound impact on the TV usage patterns of demographics "generally considered less significant in the video game market: "For example, half of all teenage girls (50.8% or 6.1 million) used a console at least one minute during the quarter."