The numbers however change in homes which have broadband access: the Internet's share of media time surges to 21 per cent, equivalent to television (24 per cent) and radio (21 per cent). The study has further revealed that people with broadband access tend to spend more time consuming other electronic media and entertainment, spending 22 per cent more time with media than those without broadband. This is mainly because their use of the Internet rises.

The study has shown that consumers in broadband households spend 134 minutes per day online, 61 per cent more than people in dial-up households. The study has revealed that broadband homes are twice as likely to try downloading and streaming content from the Internet, and over three to four times more likely to do so on a regular basis. It pointed out that 49 per cent of broadband users have tried streaming audio, as compared to 20 per cent for the US population. Sixteen per cent of broadband homes said that they had listened to streaming audio in the past week, as compared to four per cent on an average. Additionally, the report revealed that people in broadband households are twice as likely to sample Internet-only audio channels (31 per cent) as compared to those in dial-up households (18 per cent).

CableLabs tribe grows
More and more modems are getting CableLabs certification. This week, three new companies Maspro Denkoh, O1'E, and Saejin got the the go-ahead from the certification consortium for their cable modems. That took the number of modems to have got the CableLabs stamp to 90 from 36 companies. Eight other companies - 3Com, Arris, Askey, Com21, Future Networks, Thomson Consumer Electronics, Terayon (3 modems), and Toshiba (2 modems) - were re-certified.

In addition, another cable modem termination system (CMTS) from Cisco Systems was qualified - Cisco previously had one CMTS qualified. There are a total of five companies with qualified CMTS. CableLabs has given the go-ahead to USB modems from 3Com, Arris, Thomson, Terayon and Toshiba, which can be connected to PCs without the requirement of an Ethernet card. For more log on to CableLabs's web sites at www.cablelabs.com; www.cablemodem.com; www.cablenet.org; www.opencable.com, and www.packetcable.com.

Static banners fail to click
Guess what? Dynamic advertising online tends to grab surfers attention more than those static banners, no matter what experts say about animated gifs, putting visitors off. At least that's what research conducted by Arbitron/Edison Media Research has revealed. Nearly 60 per cent of those participating in the study said that they normally tend to pay attention to video ads; 46 per cent of those who have heard an online advertisement pay attention to audio ads. The comparable figure for static or dynamic banner ads: a measly 41 per cent. The study also revealed that the online radio habit is spreading like wildfire. Listening to radio stations online has trebled in two years - from from six per cent - or 14 million Americans - in 1998, to 20 per cent - or 45 million Americans - in 2000. And here's more: the Internet only audio stations are gaining ground. The proof: 20 per cent Americans are tuning into radio stations online, while 13 per cent of them have tuned into Internet only radio stations. The studyrevealed that monthly and weekly listening to radio stations online is climbing, with nearly eight per cent of respondents admitting that they had listened online during the past month and over three per cent listening in the past week.

Other facts that emerged from the study: Internet audio is mostly used while listeners are at their computers, with 29 per cent of respondents saying they listen while working on the computer. About 27 per cent say they listen to audio while visiting other Web sites and 21 per cent of them actually set up base on the sites from where the audio originates. While 19 per cent of those surveyed stressed that they listen to online audio doing other things.

The study has also highlighted the fact that users of streaming media are 50 per cent more likely to have been surfing the www waves for three or more years. They tend to spend the twice the time spent by average Americans daily online. The author is founder www.indiantelevision.com, India's cable, satellite and terrestrial television industry portal.

Email: television@vsnl.comtelevision@hotmail.com