YOUNG people are turning off their televisions and radios and shunning newsstands as they seek entertainment online, according to a report from Ofcom.

The results of the regulator’s latest annual Communications Market report came as Emap, the magazine publisher, closed its teenage magazine Sneak, saying that teenagers were getting their celebrity gossip from the internet.

According to Ofcom, 16- to 24-year-olds watch an average of 18hr 20min of television a week, compared with 25hr 30min for the average viewer.

More than a fifth, or 21 per cent, of young people said that they spent less time reading magazines in favour of the internet, while 27 per cent said that they read national newspapers less and 15 per cent said that they listened to less radio. In particular, 16- to 24-year-olds are deserting the main five public service broadcaster channels, with the proportion of viewing time taken up by these services down from 70 per cent in 2001 to 59 per cent in December 2005.

Ed Richards, the chief operating officer of Ofcom, said that 16- to 24-year-olds are “multi-taskers”, using the internet, watching television and listening to iPods at the same time. He said that they posed a challenge to advertisers, who needed to relearn how best to attract their attention.

The 16- to 24-year-old age group favours social networking websites such as MySpace and Bebo, with 70 per cent of young people using these websites and 54 per cent using them regularly.

Mr Richards said: “I don’t want to suggest that young people won’t read newspapers when they are older. They may also be going to newspaper websites. We will do more research into this next year.”

The research also indicated that young people used mobile phones more extensively than the wider population.

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