ARTICLE - Harris Interactive Finds One-Third of Heavy YouTube Users Watch Less TV

I picked out some interesting points from this article.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Flying in the face of recent research that indicates YouTube is good for TV networks, a new study from Harris Interactive says YouTube is siphoning off viewers -- particularly hard-to-reach demos such as young men. One-third of those frequent YouTube viewers equals about 2.7 million people. So it's not quite the death of TV.

The study found that almost one in three heavy YouTube users say they are watching less TV as a result of the time spent on the site. YouTube visits also cut into time spent on other sites, on e-mail, online social networking, doing work and homework and video-gaming.

It [YouTube] includes a heavy concentration of young males -- already a difficult-to-reach TV viewer. Harris reports 41 percent of 18 to 24-year-old males watch YouTube frequently.

Here's some good news for the TV networks: While 42 percent of Americans have watched a video on YouTube, 41 percent have watched video on a TV network's Web site. Of course, less than half as many 18- to 24-year-olds have viewed video on a TV network site than on YouTube, but in older demographics the numbers are more even.

Of course, Americans are still very good at multitasking when it comes to media consumption. EMarketer today noted in a report that two-thirds of U.S. adult Internet users watched TV while online. And its report cited similar multitasking studies by Yahoo and media agency OMD, which highlighted that consumers pack 43 hours worth of activity into a 24-hour day.

Harris also polled YouTube about advertising, posing the hypothetical question of what they would do should YouTube begin running pre-roll ads. In what is not a good sign for that ad model, nearly three-quarters of frequent YouTube users would cut down visits to the site. To be fair, YouTube hasn't introduced that type of ad model. Looks like a wise non-move.