A recent report released by ABI Research expects the number of viewers who watch videos on the Web to reach at least one billion in 2013, which would entail the current population of online video viewers to nearly quadruple.
The driving forces for this rapid growth are expected to be increased broadband penetration, as well as faster connection speeds for a bigger portion of the world’s population.
“A wide variety of actors aim to gain a share of this fast-growing market: not only content owners such as the BBC and NBC Universal, and Internet portals such as AOL and Yahoo!, but also a range of new entrants including user-generated content sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, broadband video sites such as CinemaNow and Lovefilm, and Internet TV providers such as Apple and Zattoo,” said senior analyst Cesar Bachelet.
Some estimates expect the world’s population to reach around 7 billion by 2013, which would mean that ABI Research’s estimate of 1 billion online video viewers equates to approximately 14% of the total population.
Bachelet recommends that traditional pay-TV operators should avoid acting to defend against this trend, and should opt to jump into the flow instead. Or, in other words, “if you can’t beat them, join them.”
If traditional TV outlets decided to go this route, online video viewers can expect to see more online sites like Hulu.com.
One thing is for sure: more viewers means more eyeballs, which means more advertisers flocking to the scene, which means more money to be had.
Sources:
http://www.abiresearch.com/abiprdisplay.jsp?pressid=1138
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/05/27/
report-online-video-audience-to-top-one-billion-in-2013
Jason Hahn
e: jhahn221@gmail.com
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