S. Porter / Vedomosti

An adult in the United States spends an average of 5 hours and 9 minutes a day on the Internet and other digital environments, which is 16% more than a year earlier, eMarketer calculated (here and below - July data for people over 18). TV viewing over the year fell by 2.5% to 4 hours and 31 minutes. For the first time, TV has lost its lead in media consumption among Americans, eMarketer writes.

Americans receive most of their digital content via mobile devices - tablets and smartphones. Now Americans use them 1.5 times longer than a year ago: 2 hours 21 minutes a day. They spend 2 minutes less on the Internet on desktop computers and laptops, and this time is gradually decreasing.

Data on TV viewing and the time Americans spend on tablets and other mobile devices generally coincide with estimates from other research companies in the US, eMarketer itself notes, but estimates of Internet consumption on desktop computers and laptops, as well as time on smartphones, differ significantly.

The change in consumer behavior has already shaken up the advertising market, the Financial Times reports. Google reported a bigger-than-expected fall in the average price of online advertising in the second quarter as consumers shifted to mobile devices. Ads on smartphones are typically cheaper than those shown on larger-screen computers. Conversely, Facebook shares soared after the company reported better-than-expected mobile ad revenue last week.

Last week, Publicis and Omnicom announced they were merging to create the world's largest advertising group. The deal is a path to creating a more tech-savvy, digital-media-focused company, executives from the two groups said.

For now, advertising dollars are clearly lagging behind consumers. Marketers are gradually shifting budgets - following the attention of users themselves, but TV advertising costs continue to dominate the global market. According to eMarketer, companies worldwide will spend $205 billion on TV advertising this year, and almost half as much on digital media promotion. In particular, the mobile advertising market will grow by 80% this year to $15.8 billion, but this is only 3% of all promotion costs.

To attract advertisers, Internet companies are releasing more and more new products. For example, Facebook will start posting videos on users' pages in the coming months.

Television companies are also trying to turn the situation to their advantage. CBS, which owns the largest cable network in the United States, has become much more active in cooperating with video services over the past year, offering content to users through all sorts of devices. In particular, thanks to this, the company's revenue in the second quarter increased by 11% to $3.7 billion. This television company's website has significantly more visitors than the websites of other television companies, its revenue in the second quarter increased by 35%.

"We're trying to be very agile. We recognize that the business models of television are changing rapidly," CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves said last week. "We embrace what's happening with technology and try to stay ahead of the curve."

TV viewers have changed screens