New data from analytics firm Flurry indicates that mobile app traffic is heavy during the middle of prime time television hours. On weekdays, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., more than 50 million U.S. consumers are using mobile apps, according to the research. While mobile app usage has exploded in the last two years, ratings for numerous prime time shows have fallen. However, shows with older audiences are maintaining viewers — and original online programming continues to grow.

“Broadcast TV shows aimed at young consumers — the only ones that Madison Avenue really values — are spiraling down far faster than anyone expected,” suggests tech travel blog Union Coast. “Of course, apps are not the only problem broadcast TV faces: many cable shows from ‘Bible’ to ‘Game of Thrones’ are hitting record audiences.”

“House of Cards” from Netflix was a hit recently and original programming is expected from Amazon, Hulu and others. “According to Cameron Yuill, CEO of AdGent, long-form video is now the hottest tablet content growth segment. Video consumption on tablets is growing even faster than time spent on apps — and time spent on apps grew by 50 percent year-on-year in early 2013,” notes Union Coast.

Advertising dollars spent on broadcast TV may see change in the near future. “Affluent Americans are increasingly splitting their attention between tablets and TV when they plop down on their sofas at 8:00 p.m. Ad agencies don’t quite know how to deal with that yet, but it’s a problem everyone is trying to solve right now,” explains the post. “And when people figure out truly effective tablet ad strategies, broadcast TV will face the dual disaster of shrinking audiences and splitting prime time ad revenue with app vendors that divide the consumer attention from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.”

“Mobile, in particular, can deliver different ads to different users within the same app or the same ad to similar types of people across different apps, based on the varying interests of those individuals,” suggests the Flurry Blog. “Dynamic segmentation is much more possible on mobile compared to earlier forms of broadcast media. Now, fast forward one year from now, by which time Flurry estimates the installed base of smartphones and tablets will have doubled to 2 billion active devices per month. That should leave marketers of nearly every product thinking: on mobile, there’s an audience for that.”