NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- It seems marketers and TV executives are having a half-full, half-empty kind of argument over TV's prowess. The results of a survey on consumer media habits commissioned by the Television Bureau of Advertising, out this week after the study was conducted by Nielsen Media Research, show that adults spend a little over half of their media hours with TV. Meanwhile, a recent survey of marketers and advertisers by the Association of National Advertisers found many were losing confidence in TV as a medium.

The release of the Nielsen 2008 Media Comparison Study -- which polled 1,246 adults over a three-week period in January, 2008 -- comes just before the start of upfront week, when all the major broadcast networks, and some of the major cable networks, present their new schedules to advertisers.

Glued to the tube
Focusing on the 25- to 54-year-old demographic, the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) survey found that 53% of their total daily media hours are spent with TV, more than all other mediums combined, and that more of them are reached by TV than other mediums: As much as 90% reported watching TV in the previous 24 hours, as opposed to 80% for radio, 72.1% for the internet, 58.9% for newspapers and 48.3% for magazines. The time spent with TV in the same 24-hour time frame was also significantly higher (222.7 minutes) when compared with radio (106.5), the internet (99.7), newspapers (22.1) and magazines (15.1).

The survey also showed that TV advertising overwhelmingly remains the most influential with 81.4% of the 25-54 adult segment, compared with advertising on internet (6.5%), newspapers (5.8%), radio (3.9%) and magazines (2.3%).

Those surveyed also overwhelmingly reported TV had the most persuasive advertising (69.9%), as opposed to 9.5% for newspapers, 7.5% for radio and 8.1% for magazines.

More spam, anyone?
Remarkably, the current darling of marketer attention, the internet, scored lowest in persuasive advertising, at 5.1%.

Brand and product awareness was also dominated by the tube, with 55% of respondents saying they were more likely to learn about products and brands they might like to try and buy on TV, trailed by the internet at 18.7%, magazines at 14.6%, newspapers at 7.1% and radio coming in last at 4.5%.