If there was one message at this week's

@d:tech West conference on digital marketing, it was this: American couch potatoes are tiring of television and migrating to computer screens.

"Television viewership is down 15 percent in homes that have AOL," said David Wertheimer, the 30-year-old president of Paramount Digital Entertainment, who gave a keynote entitled "The Net Generation and The Changing Entertainment Landscape." He said entertainment "will be the tail that wags the dog of the Internet," and that Americans aged 2 through 17 are watching five hours less television per week than their parents did at the same age.

Scott Moore, director of advertising for MSNBC, said 250,000 Americans are currently surfing the Web via a Web TV - up from last year's number of 60,000. That's happening while network television audiences are "eroding," he added.

Conference attendees at @d:tech said they are hoping a growing fusion between the Internet and television will win viewers back and open up new possibilities for targeted, trackable advertising. Moreover, if TV and computer screens are merged into one - and many products demonstrated at the show plan to do just that, beginning as early as this fall - it'll create a big push for e-commerce and entertainment.

One sure sign that TV-PC convergence is on the way, Moore said, is that Windows 98 will be able to receive television signals, and TV tuner hardware for computers is likely to become a default component of even low-cost computers by the second half of 1998. Windows will take advantage of a simple form of convergence, using Intel's Intercast technology.

Robert Fasano, executive vice president of the Internet Mall said US e-commerce is projected to reach US$8.4 billion by the year 2000. The Internet Mall currently has 27,000 stores and merchants, Fasano said, and the most popular spot is the fashion area, with technology in second place.

"It's all about targeted advertising," Fasano said. He predicts that more Internet-only merchants will pop up in the future, while traditional retailers will also continue to flock online. He also sees "a single shopping cart platform" in the future that will allow customers to shop online, around the world.

(c) Wired News