According to a study carried out by ICM, a market research company based in the U.K., and commissioned by the BCC, online video sites are taking away from the time people spend watching their television screens. Though this finding concerns British respondents, it is likely to have implications for other areas of the world as well.
The study found that almost three quarters of those responding to the survey said that they now watch more online video content than they did last year.
Of the respondents, 43% of those who viewed video content online or with their mobile devices indicated that they spent less time in front of their TVs as a result.
Despite this good news for online video, only 9% of respondents indicated that they watched online TV on a regular basis, and 13% said they watched online TV occasionally. Ten percent said that they planned to start watching online TV in this upcoming year.
Television is still holding a strong lead over online video content. Yankee Group analyst Mike Goodman said that viewers watch one or two hours of mobile video every week, while they watch four hours of regular television programming each night.
“The true revolution is not necessarily in broadband-delivered versus service provider-delivered video content. It is linear programming versus on-demand programming,” said Goodman.
It should be noted, however, that big TV networks in the U.K. are only beginning to offer content online for viewing, while in the U.S. the likes of ABC have been offering content online for a while now.
This only confirms that big advertisers will probably adjust their game plans if they have not already. As ABC and other networks continue to offer more online content for free to viewers online, an increasing number of open online commercial spots will begin to appear. ABC has indicated that their online foray has seen success, so it’s a virtual certainty that other big content providers will soon follow suit in major ways.
Not surprisingly, 16- to 24-year olds were the group most likely to view online and mobile video content, with 28% indicating that they did more than once a week. This figure drops significantly as the age group increases.
Sources:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20061128/tc_nf/48259
http://www.worldscreen.com/newscurrent.php?
filename=online112706.htm
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/54425.html
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