According to a report by UBS, people spend just 6.4% of their media consumption time with Newspapers and 27.5% of their time with Radio. Yet, newspapers attract 36.4% of the advertising spend to Radio’s meager 8.6%.

In an article in the Financial Review, Neil Shoebridge compared the time consumers spend with each of the five main media. The fact that “main media” which used to be a club of three – Newspapers, Television and Radio – has now grown to five to include Internet and Magazines is news in itself.

More importantly, Internet has now carved out a 20.9% slice of consumer attention. It’s also taking 15.1% of the advertising pie placing it third behind Newspapers and TV.

Radio comes fourth with its 8.6% advertising share yet it is second only to TV (41.9%) when it comes to consumer share of time spent listening.

Magazines come last in each category, yet punch above their weight in securing ad dollars. With just 3.4% of time spent with the medium, they pull 7.0% of the available ad spend.

Whilst these figures make for interesting comparison, there is no simple or accurate correlation between the effectiveness of advertising and the time spent listening to radio (or watching TV) versus time spent reading either magazines or newspapers.

According to the UBS report, the five main media stack up this way…

Television: Time spent 41.9%; Ad share: 33.0%
Internet: Time spent 20.9%; Ad share: 15.1%
Radio: Time spent 27.5%; Ad share: 8.6%
Newspapers: Time spent 6.4%; Ad share: 36.4%
Magazines: Time spent 3.4%; Ad share: 7.0%