Mobile apps superseding television and internet as the prime slot for advertising, reckons Flurry
It's the nature of the ad business that the amount an advertiser pays for a slot depends on the audience size and type.
So prime-time TV is between the hours of 7pm and 11pm. On mobile, however, determining what constitutes top billing is far harder to judge though that hasn't stopped analytics specialist Flurry taking a crack.
Clock watching
Limiting its analysis to users aged 15 and over, Flurry has compared the 'daypart' of apps with that of both television and internet in short, average usage statistics for all three mediums through each hour of the day.
As a result, the firm is able to draw one conclusion: between the hours of 6am and 6pm, apps are more popular than both of its rivals.
"While the relative percent of television viewers surpasses that of mobile app users during prime-time, mobile app usage continues to climb until 9pm, exceeding relative internet usage throughout the prime-time window," states Flurry's Peter Farago.
"Mobile consumers are using apps either instead of, or along-side prime-time television and the internet. In fact, the percent of relative mobile app usage is greater than that of relative internet usage every hour of every day."
Switching off
Of course, the comparison is something of a mismatch.
Television advertising is entirely determined by time. For example, advertising in the middle of the day will cost far less than sandwiching a massive show in prime-time, because far less people are watching.
Advertising on both the internet and mobile apps is an entirely different art. Ads can pop up any time of day. Determining just which hours of the day people are using apps is actually of very little value to the advertiser.
What it does suggest, however, is that the power of television advertising is weakening, as increasing number of consumers turn away from the box to tap up their apps.
"With Google recently acquiring Motorola and Apple gearing up to launch the iPhone 5 this fall, these numbers will continue to grow," concludes Farago.
"Further, with companies like Amazon pushing harder into tablets with its recently announced Kindle Fire, and companies like Nokia and Microsoft partnering to stay competitive, we can easily imagine a world of mobile apps where its prime-time all the time."
The research follows on from Flurry's previous push to highlight the scale of mobile advertising compared to web advertising.
[source: Flurry]