Investing Blog

Consumers are showing an ever growing interest in media. This interest is going to help to supercharge this part of the economy in the USA so that it will pass the $1 trillion mark in 2008. Herein there will be a rise of 6.7% a year from where it stands at $942 billion this year. It will more than likely reach the $1.2 trillion mark in 2011. As such, media will be the third fastest growing part of the economy only after agriculture and the federal government.

This growth is mainly due to corporations but consumer usage also rose, which was a big surprise because consumers had actually spent less time with the media in 2006 than it did in 2005. The reason for this is because more people are turning to the Internet instead of the traditional media. People are realizing that it takes less time to read news stories and watch video clips online than it takes to read a newspaper and watch a TV show. However, this shift is now starting to slow.

It is believed that television usage will continue to grow. In fact, it is believed that by 2011 the average consumer will spend 1,073 hours with cable or satellite TV. The amount of time that consumers are spending in front of their television set has already risen 76 hours from last year. However, people are really starting to migrate towards niche channels such as TNT, FX and ESPN. It is believed that consumers will eventually be spending $411 on cable and satellite television. This has been spurred by such new services as digital channels, digital video recorders and high-speed Internet. Along with this there will also be more money spent, an average of $8.95 per consumer, on downloading shows or watching them online.