Advertisers get in a lather, understandably, whenever a new threat arises that could challenge television and hurt viewing levels in the process, especially among the young. The latest perceived threat is online video, as available on sites such as YouTube.

But advertisers have little to worry about, at least for now and perhaps for some time.

Two separate research studies, from Magna Global and Leichtman Research Group in Durham, N.H., show that the online video craze isn’t nearly as big as it sometimes seems. And more significant to advertisers, it's having no effect on TV viewing.

Kids are actually watching more TV, not less, even with the multitude of other options, including iPods, videogames and online video, according to the Magna study.

Indeed, the likely pattern is that online video will be yet another media option, and one people will make time for, rather than cutting back on their time with existing media, at least in the near future. That's been the case in the past, as when radio listeners made time for TV and TV viewers later made time for the internet.

“The reality of online video, like any form of media entertainment, is that it’s about a minority of people doing it a lot,” says Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst at LRG. He estimates that 4 percent of adults spend one hour per day watching online video compared to 93 percent who watch TV for at least an hour. “This is not mass at this point. Usage is increasing but the user base isn’t increasing much.”

One factor in changing use of media generally is multitasking, being involved with more than one medium at a time. It's often how people are squeezing more media into their lives, and kids are notably adept.

“Kids have grown to multitask just as adults have grown to multitask,” explains Lisa Quan, vice president and director of audience analysis at Magna. “Over the course of a full day, [new media] hasn’t taken away from kids watching television.”

Kids aged 2-11 watched an average 17.34 hours of TV each week in 2006, up from 17.18 hours in 2005, based on Magna’s analysis of Nielsen Media Research ratings.

The only noticeable shift in viewing among young people was the ongoing migration away from network TV and syndication to cable networks.

Meanwhile, TV viewing is trending up in virtually every demographic group, according to Nielsen.

The average person spent a record four hours and 35 minutes watching TV each day in 2005-'06, up three minutes from the prior season. Viewing among teens was up 3 percent and among kids it was up 4 percent.

Leichtman says TV is simply too appealing for viewers to give it up, and it’s becoming more so with high-definition programs, an increasing amount of content, big screens, digital video recorders and video-on-demand.

He also points out that TV is so readily available that it will probably be many years before there’s any noticeable decline in viewing. LRG estimates that each household has an average 2.9 TV sets.

The concerns that online video will negatively affect TV viewing are reminiscent of fears raised over the past few decades about each new medium that came along.

It’s almost always the case that consumers simply squeeze in time for new media in addition to their usage of existing media.

In fact, private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson says that time spent with all media types grew an average 1.2 percent each year from 2000 to 2005. It also reports that time spent with TV went up 2 percent each year during that period and will likely grow 0.9 percent each year through 2010.

Veronis also found that the time consumers spend with many other media types was also up, with few exceptions such as newspapers and recorded music.

“What we’re seeing a lot more of is multitasking,” says Leichtman. “It’s presumptuous to assume that a couple of minutes of online viewing here and there is cutting into TV viewing across the board. It’s not about replacement. It’s about complementing and augmenting.”