Masha Geller, in her Just an Online Minute... for MediaPost last week, featured the importance of the Teen shopper on retail apparel. Here's more of the supporting documentation on brands and sites for those serving this market. Week on the Web, by comScore Media Metrix, released data this week that in July, more than 34 million Americans visited a site in the Apparel category, up 12 percent from June.

According to Arbitron Internet Broadcast Ratings MUSICMATCH was ranked the top non-commercial Internet Broadcast Network with 7,224,323 hours of Total Time Spent Listening for the month of July. Radio@AOL Network and LAUNCH were the top ranked commercial Internet broadcasters with 26,211,800 and 10,285,403 hours of TTSL, respectively. The Adsertion Network was the top sales network with 5,170,467 hours of TTSL. The top Content Delivery Networks (CDN) were Live365 with 10,212,666 TTSL and StreamGuys with 2,287,024 hours of TTSL.

According to preliminary estimates from the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper advertising expenditures for the second quarter of 2003 totaled $11.1 billion, an increase of 1.6 percent over the same period last year. Overall, the results are good news for newspapers heading into the second half of 2003.

In spite of rising gasoline prices, consumers are still interested in automobiles and how to get there. And apparently eBay is not just old furniture!

According to a new report from Forrester Research, Inc., "US eCommerce Overview: 2003 To 2008," while offline retail sales continue to struggle, online retail will grow at a steady 19 percent year-over-year growth rate, from $95.7 billion in 2003 to $229.9 billion in 2008. Most significant, online retail sales will account for 10 percent of total US retail sales by 2008.

According to eMarketer's new report, Digital Television 2003, eMarketer forecasts the number of US digital TV households to reach 56.5 million in 2005, up from 38.9 million at the end of 2002. This equates to a rise in digital TV penetration from 35.9% of households in 2002 to 50% in 2005.

At the recent List Vision conference in New York sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association, Peter Francese demographics trends analyst at Ogilvy & Mather, and the founder of American Demographics magazine, recognized the consumer shifts in age, education and lifestyle. Kris Oser, Online Content Editor for DMA, reported on some of the emerging statistics, and Mr. Franchese's thoughts.

Total magazine advertising revenue for the month of July increased 7.9% compared to July of last year, closing at $1,168,246,826 according to Publishers Information Bureau (PIB). Ad pages for July totaled 14,696.2, down 0.2% from last year. Year-to-date, advertising revenue closed at $9,757,304,920, an increase of 9.6%, and ad pages were 123,877.5, up 1.6% from last year.

When consumers who have not made online purchases were asked what would persuade them to buy online content, 53 percent cited more secure payment options. Payment security was chosen over price or product-related responses by more than a 2-1 margin.

Emarketer reports that Harris Interactive and Teenage Research Unlimited surveyed 2,618 people between the ages of 13 and 24 in June for Yahoo! and Carat and found that respondents spend twice as much time per week watching TV as reading books or magazines for pleasure.