Pearson, the international media company, registered an increase of 50% digital subscriptions and 11% increase in sales for the Financial Times subsidiary in 2010. At the same time, the Penguin subsidiary was almost entirely digital, also facing a 5% increase in eBook sales, offering 16,500 eBook titles, as reported.

It’s a significant jump, showing that there’s a big industry brewing here.  Even as print media especially seems determined to overcome the past years’ slump, digital growth looks promising.  It’s driven in part by the industry’s ability to become monetized, as more advertising moves to the digital and mobile realms.

According to a research carried out by NextNewNetworks, there is a shift in consumers’ behavior path, as advertisers would benefit more from using online video advertisements rather than television ads, due to a number of reasons: online viewers spend less time watching TV compared to non-online viewers, almost half of the online viewers share content with friends and tend to multi-task less than TV viewers (internet surfing, talk, household chores).

Moreover, more and more Americans prefer watching TV shows via online channels as the Web has become the major means of entertainment (e.g. the Youtube website seems to be the third most visited website, after Facebook and Google, according to Experian/Hitwise).  This is where distributors can really take advantage of personal cloud developments, the publishing of content across various platforms, and other means of direct consumer monetization through access channels.