1 in 4 adults visit Local TV websites.

27% of adults have visited a local TV website in the past 30 days. These findings come from a recently released study from The Media Audit. The study conducted between January 2006 and April 2007 is based on a telephone survey of 118,211 randomly selected adults across 88 markets.

Only two of the top 15 markets, make it into the top 15 for adults who visit a local TV website. Houston ranked 8th in adult population and Philadelphia ranked 7th came in 10th and 13th respectively in a ranking of top markets for percent of adults visiting a TV website.

Commenting on the study Bob Jordan, President of The Media Audit said ”Television understands the power of the multi-media platform and stations have been putting renewed effort into their websites and it is paying off.

Across the nation 73% of adults are going online. With 27% going to local TV websites, this means that nearly 40% of internet users are visiting their local TV websites. This is a strong testament to the appeal of the local TV websites.

“There are 6 markets, Raleigh, Tulsa, Denver, Columbia, Little Rock and Madison where over half the adult online population is going to a local TV website” said Jordan. “We’d expect to see that more than double over the next year.”

“Generally it is the markets with the highest internet penetration that have the highest percent of TV website visitors” notes Jim Higginbotham, Co-founder and head of research for The Media Audit. “it makes sense that if a market has a strong orientation to the internet, then the TV stations will do well.”

Of the top 15 markets, two Texas markets Houston and Dallas make it into the top 5 for converting online visitors to local TV website visitors” continued Higginbotham. Philadelphia, Detroit and Seattle make up the rest of the top 5.

One might think that heavy TV viewers would be more inclined to go to local TV websites but such is not the case. Our analysis shows there is virtually no correlation between heavy TV viewing and visiting TV websites” said Jordan.

To view charts CLICK above on ‘More Images.

For more information at http://www.TheMediaAudit.com