Trendspotting #5: l HOW MANY ADS A WEEK DOES A SPANIARD WATCH?

The average Briton sees 288 TV commercials a week which puts us in the middle of the European average. The highest TV advertising exposure in Europe is in Spain where the average number seen every week is 477. All of the Mediterranean countries see a lot of ads. Italy's average is 436, while Portugal, Greece and France hover between 360 a week and 380. Northern Europeans see far fewer, and the Swedes the fewest - only 66 ads a week on average. The research was conducted by media buying agency MediaCom which believes the Southern Europeans' high exposure to ads is because they take their siesta in front of the TV.

l COP A BIT OF TELLY

The rise and rise of the police-based TV programme is nothing new. But it is nice to have statistical back-up when moaning about TV. In one week last year, if you watched ITV between 8 and 10pm, 61 per cent of programmes would have been police related.

l 'LIGHT' VIEWERS RIPE FOR PICKING

If you have a chip on your shoulder because you've never quite made it in the traditional social demographic groupings used by advertisers then help may be at hand. Increasingly advertisers are seeking to discriminate TV audiences in new ways and the vogue is for advertising aimed at the hard-to-reach viewers. You fall into the lightest viewing third of the country, and are thereby a prime target, if you watch an average of 13 hours and 24 minutes of TV a week - or less than two hours a day. You are a medium TV viewer if you watch 26 hours and 38 minutes - about three and a half hours a day. The highest viewing third watch an average of 41 hours and 15 minutes a week - a staggering six hours a day.

l MORE MEN OPT FOR INTERNET

If you're not watching television there is a small chance you may be playing on the Internet. Latest research suggests it is the young, male light TV viewers who are most likely to be familiar with the web. A survey by CIA MediaLab shows that 27 per cent of men are familiar with the Internet, compared with just 16 per cent of women. Technological inequality seems to be fitting in nicely with all the existing inequalities.

l ADVERTISING COSTS INFLATED

Spending on advertising is used by many economists as an indicator of the health of an economy - because it often predicts and prompts consumer spending. As we have come out of the recession, advertisers' spending on TV has increased. At the same time there has been a drift in viewing away from commercial television - especially ITV. Because advertisers buy millions of viewers from TV companies, not actual commercial spots, the decline in viewers has combined with the increase in demand to produce a classic inflationary curve. Consequently there has been a 47 per cent increase in the cost of TV advertising over the last five years. Retail prices have only increased 14 per cent in the same period, so advertisers are getting steamedn