Magazines looking to ride the growth engine of media consumption may do well to pick devices over the Internet itself. According to the latest cross-media usage research from TVB Media Corporation, overall daily reach of magazines in the U.S. declined to 24.8% among adults in the first quarter of 2012 compared to 28.6% in the same period two years ago.

While the TVB study is aimed at highlighting TV over all media, it includes a comprehensive portfolio of emerging platforms. While Internet reach increased from 67.5% to 73.1% in the two year span, mobile reach for media content soared from 14.3% to 27.8%, surpassing magazines on any given day. The tablet, which didn’t really exist as a media force two years ago and was not measured, is already reaching 11.7% of Americans surveyed.
 
Magazines continue to have a fractional share of media time spent, only .2 hours per day compared to .3 for tablets, .4 for newspapers, and .7 for mobile phones. The Internet gathers 3 hours of our media time each day, but TV still rules with 5.2 hours. Broken down by gender, however, women spend .3 hours per day with magazines compared to only .18 hours by men.

Nevertheless, magazines are still the fourth most influential medium when it comes to purchase decisions, behind TV, newspapers, and Internet. Perhaps even more importantly, 6.8% of respondents said that they were most likely to learn about products from magazines, compared to 8.7% citing Internet, 8% citing newspapers and 39.8% citing TV.