Two-Thirds of College Kids Watch Online Video

Two-thirds of college kids watch online video; at the same time, rates of TV ownership dropped to 79 percent this year from 82 percent the year before.

[NewTeeVee]

Half UK web videos are from YouTube

According to new research from Comscore, almost half of all internet videos watched by Britons come from YouTube, reports Metro.

"During March, 48% of the 3.5 billion web videos watched in the UK came from Google sites, of which 99% were from YouTube.

... The BBC only has 1.2% share of the video viewing market despite the launch of the BB's iPlayer catch-up service. "

China Has 160 Million Online Video Users

China Internet Network Information Center's latest report on China's online video sector shows that there have been 160 million online video users in China.

[via China tech News]

Web Video Viewing Up 64% In March, Led by YouTube

Internet users in the U.S. watched 11.5 billion online videos in March, a 64% gain from one year earlier, led by Google’s YouTube with more than 4.3 billion views in the month, according to research firm comScore.

The videos viewed in the month, up 13% from February, came from almost 139 million users, or 73.7% of the total U.S. Internet audience, comScore estimates.

The average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video.

[via Multichannel News]

Hulu videos have been embedded more than 100,000 times

Like YouTube, Hulu users can embed their video player anywhere on the Internet.

Hulu videos have been embedded more than 100,000 times on more than 12,000 Web sites, CEO Jason Kilar said during a presentation Wednesday at the National Association of Broadcasters 2008 conference.

[via News Blog]

Phones to outsell TV sets in 2008

Consumers worldwide will buy more multimedia mobile phones than TV sets this year, according to a new report from Research and Markets. [via The Hollywood Reporter]

"The Dublin, Ireland-based firm predicts that 300 million such phones that can play audio and video and browse the Internet will be sold in 2008. Its new report, "Mobile Media 2008: The Third Screen for Entertainment," also found that half the world's population, or 3.3 billion people, now have a mobile phone subscription. "

Apple Falls Fall Short Of 1,000 Movie Rental Promise

Apple ailed to live up to a promise of providing 1,000 movies available for rental from iTunes by the close of February, with the company offering a far-off 399 titles. [via All Headline News

"The 1,000-movie pledge was first made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during last year's Macworld Expo, upping the excitement especially for Apple TV users. However, the lack of titles, all in all adding up to only 351 through the latest Apple TV version, seems to have stung the once-eager customers, despite the product's overall functionality service."

Poles Apart on Online-Video Habits

The New York Times reports that the gulf between casual and heavy consumers of online video is startlingly wide, according to figures released in mid-February.

The difference between the heaviest users and the lightest users is something like 24 times.

"It’s a clear indicator of how early we are in online video,” said Jarvis Mak, a vice president at Media Contacts, an online ad buyer that did the study with the research firm comScore. Mr. Mak predicted that this disparity would narrow as television networks continued to put programs online, attracting novice users.

ComScore gathered the data using special software installed on the computers of a panel of Internet users."

Global flat TV demand 'to double by 2012'

Demand for flat panel televisions is expected to more than double to 180 million units by 2012, driven by strong sales in China and the United States, a Japanese industry group said, reports Reuters.

"Demand for liquid crystal display TVs is likely to reach 155 million units in five years, up from 74.8 million sold in 2007, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Association (JEITA) said on Thursday.

Demand for plasma TVs will likely total 25 million units in 2012, compared with 11.4 million sold last year, it said."

BBC says millions of programmes watched on iPlayer

Over 17 million programs were watched or downloaded on demand via the BBC's iPlayer catch-up service in the first seven weeks since its full launch, the corporation said on Wednesday.

[via Reuters]

What did the writers strike cost?

To calculate the cost of the strike, Newsweek's Jennifer Ordonez talked to S. Mark Young, a professor at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, who studies the economics of the entertainment industry.

Bottom line: The cost of the writers' walkout: $3.5 billion.

US Internet Users Viewed 10 Billion Videos Online in December

The December 2007 comScore Video Metrix report revealed that U.S. Internet users watched more than 10 billion videos online during the month, representing the single heaviest month for online video consumption since comScore initiated its tracking service.

Need-to-Know Web Video Stats

Excellent NewTeeVee has posted comScore's online video traffic stats for November.

In brief:

-- YouTube racks up a total of 9.5 billion online videos viewed by 138 million Americans.

-- The average videos watched by YouTube viewers was 39 videos, whereas second-place MySpace had just 9 videos watched per viewer.

-- And interesting, the average video duration was 3.25 hours per person over the course of the month, a jump from 3 hours per person in September.

Full report on NewTeeVee.

Americans turn to online videos

Online video sharing sites are reaping the benefits of the ongoing writers' strike in the US. The BBC reports.

"According to net measurement firm Nielsen Online, some online video sites have doubled their audience since the strike began at the end of October. The BBC reports.

"The news comes as US-based Pew Internet Project highlights a more long-term growth of video sharing sites.

Its study finds that the audience to sites such as YouTubehas nearly doubled in the last year.

... Its figures show that YouTube's audience was up 18% in the two months after the strike started, and newer video-sharing sites such as Crackle have also experienced unprecedented growth."

Thirst for illegal video makes Heroes number one

Television series Heroes was last year's most popular television programme with 2,439,154 downloads, according to BitTorrent search engine and directory website Mininova. stuff reports.

Rounding out the top five were, Top Gear, Battlestar Galactica, Lost and Prison Break.

In the feature file category, Transformers topped the list with 569,259 downloads.

Other popular film downloads include, Knocked Up, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End, and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Electronic Frontiers Australia chairman, Dale Clapperton said he was not surprised by the continued level of video downloads, particularly in Australia.

"A lot of downloads take place in countries like Australia, because when a show comes out in the United States, it might be 12 months before it arrives here," Mr Clapperton said.

"The internet provides a medium for getting it a lot earlier."

He believes many broadcasters and film studios are still holding onto traditional distribution models.

"The entertainment companies need to realise they are working in the global marketplace," Mr Clapperton said.

Germans watching less TV

The Hollywood Reporter reports that, for the first time in recent memory, Germans spent less time in front of their TVs than they had the year before. And German kids watched significantly less television, boding ill for the future of the medium.

"According to the preliminary results of an annual study by Germany's television research institute, the GfK in Nuremberg, average per-day viewing in 2007 slipped to 208 minutes, down from 212 the year before. For young people the drop was doubled, down to 178 minutes from 184 in 2006.

The decrease may reflect a rise in the amount of time Germans spent at the computer. The introduction of such Web sites as MySpace.de and iTunes.de in 2007 ramped up the trend toward online entertainment consumption here, which had long lagged behind that of the U.S. and U.K."

[via I4U]

Pay-TV turns off China football fans

According to the BBC, China's enthusiastic band of football fans have failed to sign up to watch the English Premier League on a new pay-per-view format.

"Top-flight English matches were previously available for free on television and had a potential audience of 30 million. But that changed when broadcaster WinTV bought the rights to broadcast Premier League games in China for three seasons, starting this year.

WinTV now admits it has managed to attract only 20,000 customers willing to pay the 588 yuan (£39; $80) annual fee.

A company spokeswoman said it was proving difficult to persuade Chinese football fans to pay to watch matches that were previously free. "

The Most Memorable Web Videos of 2007

The most memorable Web videos of 2007 from Yahoo. Of course most are American. "Good or bad, the videos we watch and post online are the historical archives of our time, a constantly changing reflection of our society."

In the U.S. alone this year, people watched approximately 100 billion Internet videos, according to ComScore Video Metrics.

[via Lunch over IP]

WGA strike taking toll on L.A.

According to Variety, The WGA strike will wind up costing the local economy anywhere from $380 million to $2.5 billion, depending on how long it goes on and who's doing the forecasting.

The dent put on Los Angeles County's economy by the now 7-week-old strike was the subject of a 75-minute hearing held Wednesday ayem at City Hall by the L.A. City Council's Housing Community and Economic Development committee.

... Factoring in the lost wages of idled writers and the multiplier effect on a wide range of support businesses, the strike has cost L.A. County more than $342.7 million and counting, Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., told the committee, based on calculations he made as of Tuesday.

The last WGA strike, which ran five months in 1988, resulted in a $500 million loss at a time when the biz employed about 80,000 locals."

More TV viewers turn to Web: poll

More television viewers are turning to the Internet to watch videos, films and TV episodes, according to a new survey by Harris Interactive. [via Reuters]

"Approximately 65 percent of the 2,455 U.S. adults surveyed by Harris Interactive said they have watched a video on YouTube, compared to 42 percent during the same time last year.

... Apart from YouTube, which most people favored because they felt it had almost every video they could find, 43 percent said they have watched a video on a TV network Web site, followed by 35 percent on news sites and less than 30 percent on search engines such as Yahoo and Google."

Sales Of Multimedia Phones To Pass TVs Next Year

Worldwide shipments of multimedia-enabled mobile phones will exceed 300 million units next year, surpassing shipments of television sets, according to a research report being released this week by MultiMedia Intelligence. Sales of such phones will generate over $76 billion in revenue.

[via Information Week]

Internet attracts growing TV audience

The number of people in the UK accessing TV, video and movie sites online is up 28 per cent to 21 million, according to figures from Nielsen Online.

The TV, video and movie sector now attracts some 63 per cent of Britons, up from 55 per cent in September 2006.

The total time spent consuming content from such sites has also nearly doubled, from 641 minutes in 2006 to 1.2 billion minutes by September 2007.

YouTube is the most popular site, being visited by 9.4 million Britons who spend a combined total of almost half a billion minutes on it."

[via mad.co.uk]

TV Viewing, 1952-2007

Nielsen: Historical TV viewing activity among households, from about 4hr48 a day in 1952 to 8hr14 in 2006.

[TV by The NumbersAdvertisingLab[

Increase in viewing TV over the Internet (UK)

The number of British people watching TV over the internet has increased steadily over the last 12 months, according to Continental Research’s Autumn 2007 Internet & Convergence Report, reports Broadband TV News Today.

"The strongest amount of growth has come from the number watching shows that have been downloaded from the internet, doubling from 1.3 million in 2006 to 2.4 million in 2007.

In addition to the 2.9 million who have already watched streamed TV online, a further 2.4 million say they are likely to in the next year. "

Online TV Viewing Doubles

The percentage of web users who watch TV shows online has doubled from last year, growing from 8 to nearly 16 percent, according to a new report by The Conference Board and research firm TNS. The convenience of watching on demand as well as avoiding commercials are the primary drivers.

The percentage of viewers who watch online to catch up on episodes that were missed rose from 30 to 42 percent."

[via Marketing Shift]

WSJ Digital Network Video Streams Up 70 Percent Over July

The Wall Street Journal Digital Network anounced some traffic figures via CNN.

Of interest to this blog:

-- Video traffic across the WSJ Digital Network increased 70% from July. These videos were played via WSJDN's players like http://www.wsj.com/video, embedded on individual user blogs, or viewed via distribution partners such as MSN and YouTube. WSJDN videos highlight a full range of business-of-life segments, fromhow to build your own hybrid to becoming a competitor at Beer Pong.

Leave Britney Alone! One of the most-discussed videos of all time

A YouTube user's passionate (and profane!) defense of troubled pop star Britney Spears has become one of that website's most-discussed videos of all time -- in less than a week. USA Today reports.

"The video's creator, who goes by the name Chris Crocker, uploaded his roughly two-minute Leave Britney Alone! video on Monday after Spears' much-ridiculed comeback performance on the MTV Video Music Awards the night before.

By Sunday, Crocker's video had gotten more than 92,000 comments, ranking it No. 7 among the most-discussed videos in YouTube's history. (The No. 1 most-discussed video, Truth about islam from an ex-muslim lady, uploaded a year ago, has received more than 152,000 comments.)

Leave Britney Alone! has been viewed more than 6.5 million times. It's also drawn nearly 1,400 video responses, including one from entertainment blogger Perez Hilton. Crocker stretched his 15 minutes of fame further through interviews with online magazine Salon, radio shock jock Howard Stern, and on CNN and ABC."

Internet vs. IPTV Video Viewing Habits

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's first major report on online video, 57 percent of adult Web surfers have used the Internet to watch or download video, and 19 percent do so on a typical day. [via Daily IPTV]

"Furthermore, 74 percent of users who have broadband connections both at home and at work watch or download video online.

With numbers like these, many people tend to overlook viewing habits on emerging IPTV services, which are considerably different but equally important.

Richard Broughton, an analyst at Screen Digest, explained some of the differences. “IPTV viewing habits are, at the moment, most comparable to cable or satellite viewing habits,” said Broughton.

... The Pew report also showed some important figures on video sharing, stating that more than 57 percent of online video viewers share links to the videos they find with others, while 75 percent receive links to watch video that others have sent them."

Read full article

Gas Station TV

In the spirit of never a dull moment, or more to the point, never a lost advertising opportunity, Gas Station TV installs television screens at gas pumps around the country. The screens pump out snippets of news, entertainment, sports and weather during the time frame it takes for motorists to gas up.

The television segments, which are updated throughout the day, are furnished by the ABC Television Network and ESPN.

But the bread and butter of this novel concept are the 15 and 30-second advertisements that are sandwiched between each information segment.

The company has 2,500 screens at 250 gas stations around the US and expects to reach 6,500 screens by the end of the year.

[via Detroit News]

YouTube now accounts for 28% of total minutes spent on Google

YouTube now accounts for 28% of total minutes spent on Google worldwide and an astounding 35% of global users. According to JMP Securities analyst William Morrison's analysis of Comscore data,

[Silicon Alley Insider via The Daily Reed]

Majority of Web Users Watch Videos

More than six in 10 Internet users watch online videos, according to an Advertising.com-commissioned study conducted by Insight Express, reports eMarketer.

"The study also said that nearly seven in 10 video viewers were 35 or older. They rated news clips as their favorite type of video.

... About 94% of consumers said they preferred ads to subscription fees. Nearly two-thirds thought shorter ads made the experience better.

More than one-half of respondents said they would watch a TV show online if they missed it on TV. Eight in 10 said online video usage did not cut into their TV time."

Online video study shows older than expected audience

Advertising.com Inc. has released the results of its bi-annual video study, an in-depth analysis of consumer behavior as it relates to online video viewing and response to video advertising. Tech Journal South reports.

"Study results indicate that the majority of consumers are viewing video online, at 62 percent of survey respondents. Contrary to popular opinion, these viewers are not just young adults viewing user-generated videos; in fact, most (69 percent) are ages 35 and older with a preference for viewing news clips online.

Other key findings include:

-- More news, user-generated content: In the first half of 2007, 62 percent of consumers viewed news clips online, followed by movie trailers at 38 percent. Music videos came in third at 36 percent, decreasing from 47 percent in the second half of 2006.

-- Tastes differ by age: The 18 to 34 year old audience prefers entertainment content such as music videos and TV shows. They also create more online video content than those ages 35 and older. In contrast, the 35 and older audience is more likely to view news. Compared to the previous study, 18 to 34 year olds are streaming more movies, TV shows and user-generated videos; while those 35 and older are streaming more sports clips and user-generated videos than previously reported.

-- Catching up on TV, not replacing it: 51 percent of survey respondents would watch a television episode online if they missed it on TV; but 80 percent of consumers say that online video usage does not cut into their TV time. "

1 in 5 adults watch Web videos

One in five online Americans view video over the Internet on any given day, thanks to speedier Internet connections and a wider selection of clips, a Pew Internet and American Life Project study finds. The AP reports.

"Young adults watch in greater numbers and often turn to humorous clips, while all other age groups use video predominantly for news, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

On a typical day, 19 percent of U.S. Internet adults watch some form of video. News ranked first and comedy second overall.

Having high-speed Internet access helps: A quarter of those with broadband at home watch video on a typical day, compared with 9 percent for dial-up users."

Online TV ads contributed just $400 million in revenue in 2006

Online TV ads contributed just $400 million in revenue in 2006, part of a $25 billion industry, U&S said. But a “mind-blowing” “goldrush”, driven by the potential in sites like YouTube and MySpace to get TV distribution, will see the medium play a bigger part, the firm —even though it doesn’t see online TV platforms taking off for another three years.

[via PaidContent]

French Video Site Dailymotion.com Stakes a Strong Position in the U.S. Market

Dailymotion has taken hold in the U.S., drawing more than 4.7 million video streamers in April. The average video streamer at Dailymotion.com viewed more than 10 videos and nearly one hour of video content in the month.

comScore's study examined six video-sharing sites that did not make comScore's ranking of the top 10 U.S. video properties for the month and reveals that French site Dailymotion.com had a particularly strong position in the U.S. video-sharing market in April 2007

... Veoh.com, which attracted the smallest video-viewing audience of the group, had the highest level of user engagement with more than 104 minutes per streamer , benefiting from the many full-length videos hosted on the site.

ComScore also examined the demographic composition of video streamers at these sites, revealing some interesting differences in the age of the audience each site attracts.

-- the coveted 18-34 age segment represented 41 percent of Break.com's audience,

-- followed by DailymotionVeoh.com (37 percent).

-- Heavy Networks drew the largest share of its video streamers from those younger than 18 years of age (18 percent),

-- while Revver.com and Metacafe.com drew the largest share among people age 35-44 (24 percent).

[via Press release]

3 Million Canadians Upload Video

Canadians are creating, not just watching, online video, according to the results of an ongoing study of Canadians' technology and media use by Solutions Research Group a Toronto-based market research firm.

Three million Canadians (~16% of the Internet population) report having uploaded a short video to a private or a public web page. [via Newswire]

Mobile TV users surpass 6-millions in Korea

The Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) users surpassed 6-million. This figure means 1.3 out of 10 Koreans has a DMB player. Telecoms Korea via LIFT Lab

Huge Growth In Online Video Use

The results of a national online Magid Associates survey conducted the last week of March have just been released, documenting the huge growth in popularity for Americans to view video online over the Internet.

-- Daily usage of online video rose by 56 percent over the last year.

-- In 2006, 9 percent of 12- to 64-year-old Americans who used the Internet reported using online video daily -- every day.

-- Today, in 2007, this number has risen to 14 percent of Americans 12 to 64 years old.

-- Among young adult males 18 to 24, 35 percent report using online video at least once a day, and 80 percent report watching online video at least once a week.

Web video attracting broad band of users

Several years late for the likes of Pop.com, Icebox.com and other sites trying to earn a buck from it, Internet video has finally become the killer application that just about everyone in the entertainment industry knew that it someday would be. Reuters.

"In March, seven of every 10 Internet users in the U.S. streamed at least one video online, with the average "streamer" viewing 55 videos during the month, according to digital measurement service comScore.

The 126.6 million U.S. streamers in March, according to comScore, each watched an average 145 minutes of online video during the month."

American Idol in numbers

Millions tune in to American Idol to watch the newest “average Joe” be transformed into a pop star. Nielsen Media Awards reports that “American Idol… averaged 28 million viewers, compared to 15 million for the Grammys.

The fact that more viewers were caught up in the Hollywood auditions of amateur singers than in the glitz and glamour of the world’s hottest-selling recording stars was further testament to the popularity of Idol, the most watched show on television” .

[via Reuters]

Google accounts for 17% of US video streams

Google’s video sites, including YouTube, dominated the US video streaming market in March 2007, according to new research.

The findings, from comScore., indicate that Google’s properties were the top US streaming video property with 57.4 million unique people streaming (“streamers”) and 1.2 billion video streams initiated.

YouTube.com drove the lion’s share of the video streaming activity at the Google Sites property with 53.5 million unique streamers and 1.1 billion streams initiated.

Other notable findings from March 2007 include:

-- Five out of every seven U.S. Internet users (71.4 percent) streamed video online.

-- Three out of every ten (30.1 percent) of U.S. Internet users streamed video on YouTube.com.

-- The average online video viewer consumed 55 video streams, or nearly two per day, during the month.

-- Online viewers watched an average of 145 minutes of online video in March 2007.

[via Netimperative]

Sky One catches a break with 'Prison'

According to the Hollyood Reporter UK's Sky One has beaten out the Five channel for the rights to Season 3 of "Prison Break" in a deal thought to be worth $996,400 per episode.

Wow, so that's what a top rated series gets for an episode. I don't know what the scheduling is in the UK, but to keep getting these prices, the series better air simultaneously with the US broadcast, otherwise many europeans will be watching Prison Break on video sharing sites, instead of on TV. (cf Online TV viewing in Europe on the rise}

Watching Network News is for old people

"I think of watching network newscasts as something my parents do," says University of Pennsylvania graduating senior Jen Jablow, 22, an anthropology major from Somerset, N.J.

"I can't imagine my friends sitting down to watch an actual network newscast at 6:30 because we're doing other things at that time. It's a lot quicker to go online. I customize my news."

... With a network evening news format that's remained virtually unchanged - and unfunny - for 40 years, it's no surprise that young adults take a pass.

The median age of Big 3 news viewers hovers around 60 - twice as old as that of Comedy Central .

Only 10 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds watching TV are tuning in to the evening news on ABC, NBC and CBS combined this season, according to figures provided by Nielsen Media Research ."

[via The Philadelphia Inquirer]