(FORTUNE Magazine) – The best things in life may be free, but having a good time usually costs $1 or $2 an hour. That's what analyst Mark Stahlman, president of New Media Associates in New York City, figured after averaging the cost of various leisure activities ranging from watching television and reading newspapers to helicopter skiing in the Alps and safaris in Kenya. While the wealthy and status-conscious may pay hundreds of dollars an hour for exotic recreation, mass-market leisure -- books, stereo CDs, rental videos -- almost always hovers around the $1 to $2 per hour rate. Products costing more -- like the current generation of CD-ROMS -- may be in trouble. (For more on the problems of CD-ROMS, see Information Technology/Special Report.) Stahlman reckons that most CD-ROMS offer no more than one hour of fun and can easily cost $50. That makes them more expensive by the hour than going to the opera in Manhattan, golfing at Pebble Beach, or drinking a bottle of Dom Perignon.