Homes with Web access watch less TV, AOL/Nielsen study says

Fifteen percent less -- to be exact -- according to a study conducted by Nielsen Media Research for America Online Inc.(NYSE:AOL), released Wednesday. The study, which tracked TV and Internet use in 5,000 U.S. homes during the month of January 1998, showed that those with Internet access or online service subscriptions watched eight hours less television per week than their non-wired counterparts.

The findings are consistent with other studies that have shown that online households "are more upscale than their unconnected counterparts, and that upper-demographic homes, as a whole, watch less television than the U.S. average," said Paul Lindstrom, vice president of Nielsen Media Research in New York, in a statement.

(NYSE:AOL) officials pointed to the findings as evidence that AOL is more valuable to certain types of advertisers than television.

The study "underscores AOL's unique advantage compared to television, which is under-delivering to these upper-demographic Internet and online households so desirable to advertisers," said Bob Pittman, AOL's chief operating officer, in a statement on the results.

It was unclear whether those surveyed were on the Internet instead of watching TV.