By Armando Duke

(AXcess News) Houston - According to eMarketer, growth across television, video online and mobile video all grew in May, though the number of people watching TV grew 1 percent.  Perhaps the economy will affect TV viewing levels even more in the coming months.

Across age groups, more young people were tuned into mobile video watching while it was about even in television and video online viewership.

TNS Global says that online video is stealing traffic away from commercial television viewing time in the US, 35% indicated the drop was due to spending more time on the Internet.

The number of TV and online video viewers in the US is also predicted to rise through 2012, when more than 300 million will watch TV and 190 million will watch online video, eMarketer noted.

But even though there are more eyeball hours glued to the tube, rating agency Standard & Poor's says the media and entertainment sector is vulnerable to "liquidity pressures in a prolonged credit crunch, especially if there is a recession."

Historically, businesses look around at where they can cut costs and advertising and marketing are typically one of the hardest hit during tough economic times.  Yet while traditional media, such as newsprint, is suffering, the web is a different story.

In fact, the latest Blair survey of online marketing companies points to a slowdown in online ad spending, but still growing at half the pace of last year.  US mobile usage is also on the rise and between the shift to mobile video and online video, advertising sales is expected to climb, though what effect the economic downturn will have on television ad sales is still up in the airwaves.

Carrying much of the ad dollars on television is the presidential elections, which is doing a lot to line the pockets of the major television networks, but with the economic downturn comes less consumer spending and a growing trend to stay home and watch television for entertainment instead of going out.

So it would appear that broke consumers are going to watch even more television in the coming months because of a lack of spendable dollars in this economy.  How advertisers sell that is the hundred dollar question.