• by Bill Moult , December 2, 2005

Relative to everything else that goes on in consumers' lives, media has already won the war for their time: More time is spent with media (about 9 hours for the average day) than with any other life activity, based on detailed observations of "a day in the life" of 350 consumers profiled in Ball State University's 2005 Middletown Media Studies. As MediaPost's Research Brief recently summarized, "Get A Life: Spend It With Media." But how does the battleground shape up for the various media competing with each other for consumers' time?

One of the best ways to summarize the Middletown Media Studies' data is to simultaneously look at the "daily reach" (percentage of adults using each medium) and "daily duration" (average number of minutes each user spends with that medium). Our research provides a snapshot of 15 different media (and a few combinations) on these two dimensions.

The first thing we noticed in our research is that TV is alive and well, in terms of its presence in consumers' lives. The Middletown Media Studies reveal that about 90 percent of adults watch television in an average day, and for an average of about four hours! As was famously the case with Mark Twain in his prime, rumors of TV's demise have been "greatly exaggerated." TV remains a nearly ubiquitous and high-exposure medium in America, with typical consumers in a room with a TV on for more than one-quarter of their waking day.

Like Chicago's self-positioning vs. New York as "The Second City," the media world has a clear challenger as "The Second Medium," even if it's not traditionally positioned as such. In terms of the way consumers spend their time, the computer has quickly emerged as the potential challenger to TV's dominance. Among the Studies' participants, more than 70 percent spend time at a pc in an average day and log about three hours a day with it.

Unlike TV, which has been a pervasive part of Americans' lives for five decades, the PC was barely a factor two decades ago when it made its debut. Two key questions need to be answered regarding the TV vs. the PC: How will the two media compete for consumers' time and attention, and how will they converge to offer some of the most compelling benefits of both?

It is clear that relative to the TV or PC, various print media -- books, magazines, and newspapers -- are each more modest in reach (roughly 30 to 40 percent of consumers in an average day), and of much shorter duration (less than an hour average for all print media combined among print users). Meanwhile, DVDs have already leapfrogged VCRs in terms of both reach and duration. It's noteworthy that the average consumer logs nearly two hours with a DVD movie on the day it is used.

The analysis gets more interesting when we start to segment consumers, even in simple ways. By dividing the Middletown Studies consumers into men and women ages 18 to 39 vs. 40 and older, we're able to see differences. For example, TV usage is about one hour per day higher for older men and women than for their younger counterparts.

On the other hand, the data about phone usage is fascinating for the opposite reason. Both incidence and duration levels are tightly clustered for all four age-by-gender groups. The telephone has the additional distinction of being the highest medium measured in terms of daily reach: Roughly 95 percent of consumers, and more than 90 percent of each of the age-by-gender groups use the telephone in an average day. Our analysts have labeled the telephone as the "universal priority," while TV is the "universal presence." The big difference between the two is in duration, with total telephone use averaging less than an hour a day for all four age-by-gender groups.

There are also differences between radio and non-radio music usage (i.e., CDs and MP3 players). Total time among users listening to one or the other tends to range between about an hour and a half to a little more than two hours a day across the various age-by-gender groups. But there are big differences in daily reach for these apparently competing media: Men are much more likely than women to listen to the radio, and older consumers are much less likely than younger ones to listen to any music (other than on the radio).

Analysis of PC-related media usage across age-by-gender groups shows that while most men and women, young and old, tend to use the PC in an average day, they do so for different reasons. Younger men emerge as one of the more unusual groups in this regard, tending to spend the most time with software; and while they are the least likely to use the Internet and e-mail, they are the most likely to use instant messaging. Younger women, on the other hand, are much more likely than their male cohorts to use the computer in an average day, and particularly to use it for e-mail.

Bill Moult is the founding partner of Sequent Partners. (bill@sequentpartners.com)