• PaidContent.org, Tuesday, August 4, 2009 2:17 PM

According to a new study from Veronis Suhler Stevenson, consumers spent more time with media they paid for, like books or cable TV, than they did with primarily ad-supported media, like newspapers and magazines, in 2008. This marks the first time consumers spent more time with paid than ad-supported media during the course of a year.

As PaidContent.org's Rafat Ali points out, the study shows that people are willing to pay for content-but not all kinds of content. As VSS's John Suhler says: "No longer are newspaper and magazine subscription purchases and network prime-time viewing the norm. Instead, they are declining and consumers are spending more time with media which they support and pay for as opposed to ad-supported media...This development is a culmination of two decades of this secular shift towards consumer-controlled media, and shows no signs of slowing."

The study is full of scary prospects for certain media sectors. For example, by 2013, VSS estimates that the video game market will be nearly the same size as the newspaper industry. Among those sectors that will show fast growth through 2013 are: paid product placement (17.6% compounded annual growth rate), email marketing and in-game advertising (both 18.5%), mobile advertising outside of texting (33%), mobile advertising and content tied to broadcast TV (35.5%), mobile gaming and advertising (46.2%), and Internet and mobile video downloads (34.4%).

Read the whole story at PaidContent.org »