Marketing is changing unbelievably fast at the moment. And change brings great uncertainty.

But one thing we can cling to in these uncertain times is that traditional media is dying and traditional advertising is going with it, much as a dog will pine for its much loved master.

New research released today by TNS (commissioned by Google - slight case of bias alert!) shows that in the UK, surfing the web has overtaken watching TV at the nation’s favourite leisure activity.

The average internet user now spends an average of 164 minutes a day online, compared with 148 minutes each day spent watching TV.

Of course, this is a little loaded. The sample is “internet users”, not adults generally. And if the average user spends 164 minutes onlines AND 148 minutes watching TV, that’s over 5 hours a day, which seems an awful lot of leisure time. Or maybe I work too hard.

And what do all these happy surfers spend their time doing? Shopping mainly. Nothing much changes then.

But it is an important milestone, inconceivable only a few years ago. I wonder when we’ll see advertising dollars start to reflect this parity. Probably not within 5 years. But within 10?