20% of Primetime Television Now Watched Online

Online video consumption has been on the rise for a while, and now Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI) is releasing demographic and behavioral data to show the details of the trend. Search Engine Watch reports.

"20% of primetime television programming is now viewed online.

The audience is comprised of 55% female and 45% male.

Households earning $80,000 a year or more are 56% more likely to watch a network show online. Those earning $40,000 a year or less are 75% more likely to watch a primetime show live.

The largest segment of online television viewers are white, affluent, well educated, working women aged 25-44."

Web video slowly creeps up on TV in Europe

More than one in four Europeans regularly watches online video on sites such as Google's YouTube but the medium has a long way to go to catch up with regular TV, according to Internet research firm Jupiter. Reuters reports.

"In a report released on Thursday, Jupiter said 28 percent of Europeans watched online video at least once a month, mainly short clips but also full-length video via services like the BBC iPlayer or France's M6 Replay.

Although time spent by Europeans watching online video rose 50 percent from 2006 to 2007, it still accounted for just 0.9 hours per week of viewing on average last year, compared with 13.2 hours spent watching television.

Jupiter warned traditional broadcasters to find ways to deliver programes to their audience online or risk losing them to pirate sites, despite the fact that generating revenue through online video ads is still in early development."

Survey finds most Americans think in-store movie renting is fading out

A recent survey conducted by CinemaNow (read: your skeptic hat should now be firmly in place) suggests that 87% of Americans surveyed agreed that "renting DVDs at the video store or through mail service will become a thing of the past," and 94% of those same folks reportedly felt that movie downloads were just "better for the environment."

[via engadgetHD]

Online viewing won’t kill TV - CBS

Not hugely surprising, but CBS commissioned a study showing that watching full-length shows online won’t destroy television viewership, and it will attract a younger audience.

[via Reuters Blogs]

Canadians skirt law to watch TV on the web

Canadians are turning on, tuning in and watching traditional TV shows on the Internet often using underground ways to access American programming, says a new study by Toronto-based Two Solitudes Consulting. Times and Transcript reports.

"There's less online content available from Canadian broadcasters than is available from U.S. broadcasters, study author Alan Sawyer said.

The lack of available content is resulting in Canadians using underground activity to get the TV shows they want to see online, he said.

"A very important thing to realize is that every television program that is broadcast is available in most cases in illegal peer-to-peer broadcasting," said Sawyer.

... The study is called Changing Channels: Alternative Distribution of Television Content, and was done for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)."

Study: TV still the viewing workhorse

Watching online streams isn't going to replace the living room TV set anytime soon: According to a study released Monday by the Nielsen and the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, 94% of US adults who subscribe to a cable or satellite service prefer to watch programming on their traditional sets rather than online.

[via The Hollywood Reporter. Read also WebPro News]

Watching TV on Web may replace old-school cable

V e r b a t i m

"If you think about it, (giving up your cable company) is a little bit like cutting the cord. With a phone, two to three years ago, it was completely insane to say that you don't really need a home phone. -- Aniya Zaozerskaya, an analyst at Compete Inc., a Boston Web analytics firm.

[via The Boston Globe]

Tots and Teens Dig the NewTeeVee

According to new Nielsen data, the next generation of video watchers is spending even more time with online video at home than the current crop of adults do. NewTeeVee reports.

Plasma TVs, gaming consoles guzzle electricity: study

Plasma television sets consume he most power out of a list of 16 electronic devices tested by by Choice.com.au, including laptops, stereo systems and DVD players. Reuters reports.

"... The plasma TV set consumes over four times more power than a traditional analogue set. The average desktop computer was third on the list."

The report advised consumers to switch off their electronic devices at the source, rather than just from the remote control, which puts them on power-consuming stand-by mode. "This saves on money, not to mention carbon emissions," it added."

Hey! Nielsen Brings Buzz to Ratings

Hey! Nielsen is a place for TV fans to voice opinions about TV programming that opened last September.

Nielsen's intent is to figure out how to incorporate the feedback into its ratings:

"Using data from real users, Hey! Nielsen generates a Hey! Nielsen score -- a real-time indicator of a topic's impact, influence, and value. As users submit feedback, the score is created from a number of factors such as user response, blog buzz, and news coverage, as well as raw data from our sister sites Billboard.com, HollywoodReporter.com, and BlogPulse.com."

[via MIT Adverblog]

BitTorrent sees big growth, LimeWire still #1

BitTorrent is the hottest thing in P2P right now—a just-released study shows 19.5 percent growth in BitTorrent use during a 12-month period ending in September 2007. LimeWire is still the most popular P2P app, however.

[via ars technica]

Report: Viewers want Web with DVD

Customers want Web-enabled features on their next DVD player, according to a new study by the Diffusion Group, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

"By contrast with PCs and game consoles, the DVD platform is seen as inexpensive, reliable and very simple to use.

"Adding Internet support and a few compelling Web-enabled features into a mainstream living room platform like the DVD player will increase the uptake of media networking in general and particularly, TV-based Web video consumption," TDG president and report author Michael Greeson said.

TV content creators get good news

A new survey of TV viewers worldwide reveals ominous trends for networks but -- paradoxically -- encouraging news for content creators such as producers, directors and writers.

Consulting firm Accenture, which published the survey Monday, found that viewers are very loyal to their favorite shows, much more so than to the branded networks that provide them.

[via Variety]

Study: Pirated Web Video Peaks 12-18 Hours After Broadcast

Unauthorized viewing of popular TV shows on video-sharing Web sites like YouTube peaks between 12 and 18 hours after an episode is broadcast, according to a study conducted by Akamai Technologies and content-identification service provider Vobile. [via MultiChannel News]

"The companies tracked one broadcaster’s primetime show—which they declined to identify—over a 30-day period starting the second week of January.

They found that while illegal versions of the show became available online within minutes of broadcast, consumption was relatively low in the first 12 hours. Usage spiked the morning following broadcast and grew larger throughout the day.

Within 72 hours, unauthorized versions eroded the audience for the content owner’s own TV episode distributed online almost 20%, according to Akamai and Vobile."

Bedroom TV leads to children being stupider and less healthy

Teenagers with a bedroom television tend to have poorer diet and exercise habits and lower grades in school than those without one, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

[Reuters via Tech DIgest]

70% of UK TV audience goes online while viewing

According to a survey commissioned by video search service, Blinkx, almost 70% of adults in Britain go onto the internet while watching television. IPTV Watch reports.

"Younger viewers are particularly fond of going online while watching TV - over 20% of 16-24 year olds said this was something they always did.

The survey found that 30% of those going online while watching television did so to search for products or services featured in the programme they were watching, while 27% searched for information on advertised products.

Blinkx also found that it is becoming increasing popular to watch TV programming online. Over 50% of British adults with access to the internet watch programming online. One in five watch full-length television shows, movies or sporting events online."

Image from TechCrunch

Strike didn't hurt TV usage, study finds

According to a new study, strike-era viewers managed to increase the amount of time spent watching DVDs, playing video games and surfing the Internet while continuing to watch as much television programming as before.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

TV Ownership May Be Good for Well-Being

In most countries the world over, Gallup data show that people who have televisions in their homes report greater well-being than do those who do not have televisions in their homes.

... The beneficial effects of owning a TV hold up even after taking into account many of the desirable things that often go hand in hand with TV ownership, including wealth and access to electricity and running water. Gallup noted that “even when comparing people with identical incomes, TV owners still enjoy higher levels of well-being and optimism.”

[via Adfreak]

Study: Kids Multitask While Watching TV

A new study on social networking by Greenwald Associates reveals that kids are no longer glued to the television. Now, while the tube is on, many kids are also splitting their attention between the TV and the Internet.

The report showed that 64 percent of kids aged nine to 17 go online while watching TV. Of those, 73 percent say they're engaged in active multi-tasking.

[Search Engine Watch via NewTeeVee]

Online TV contents drive viewers back to television

According to Disney-ABC co-chair Ann Sweeney, the content TV networks put online actually drive viewers back to television. And the viewers who watch TV programming via the Internet and are then driven into or back into TV are younger that the average TV network viewer and pay more attention to advertising.

Viewers on the ABC.com video player--during the first 18 weeks of the current TV season--watched more than 124 million episodes, a 178 percent uptick over the same period last season.

In addition, she says that its streaming video users remember ads 87 % of the time.

[via Ibinews]

Survey: Web watchers are multitasking

According to the results of a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of video search service blinkx, some 78 percent of adults who watch TV while online claim to be using the Web at the same time, while a further 35 percent said that simultaneous Web surfing and TV watching is something they engage in consistently.

In an area of the survey that’s bound to interest product advertisers, around 62 percent of those polled returned that they surf Web content connected to whatever it is they’re watching on the TV.

[via The Tech Herald]

Watching TV online: The New Workplace Distraction

Those co-workers who always insist on eating lunch at their desks may not be working as hard as you thought. Maybe they’re just watching television online, writes The Wall Street Journal.

"When do most people watch these programs? Weekdays between 12 pm and 2 pm, according to data released today by Nielson Online.

The number of people watching these half-hour or hour-long shows online during lunch hours is 50% higher than the average of all other times. Sadly, this study may end up being the kiss of death for this habit."

Nielsen Online Takes a Look At How People Use Web Video

In its first significant study of how people consume online video, Nielsen Online has found that women tend to favor network television on the Web, while men are drawn to user-created content. The Wall Street Journal reports.

"Women are nearly twice as likely as men to tune into videos on TV networks' Web sites, according to Nielsen Online's first public release of its research into online-video viewing habits.

At the same time, on user-generated media sites, such as YouTube, men 18 to 34 years old were more than twice as likely as women in the same age group to watch videos.

Online-video viewing has become a standard Web activity -- Nielsen Online says 73% of active Web users watched online video in December -- but marketers are eager for more information about viewership patterns to help them decide how to advertise alongside this content."

Nielsen to Track Online Video Use Through Its TV Panel

With more consumers starting to consider the idea of watching TV programs and other video online, Nielsen said it would "introduce measurement of TV viewing on the PC screen in our TV panel by the end of 2008," reports AdAge.

"Nielsen's effort is part of a strategy to measure all kinds of video consumption, whether it take place on the traditional TV screen or on smaller video perches such as mobile phones or iPods. The effort is not an easy one, however, primarily because people don't watch programs or video content in the same way across different venues and out of 98 eligible households, only 44 said they would allow Nielsen to hook meters up to their PCs.

Those that refused said "that although they trusted Nielsen to maintain their confidentiality with TV measurement, they felt computer data is more personal and personally identifiable than TV data."

Americans turning to Web for TV

According to an article in Variety on Friday, more Americans are turning to the Web to watch TV -- at least they were as the strike began.

"In a study conducted by Canadian research firm Solutions Research Group, nearly 80 million Americans, or 43% of the online population, watched a TV show on the Internet, as of November, up from 25% a year ago.

An additional 20% of American Internet users said they watch TV on the Web on a weekly basis, according to the Digital Life America study conducted quarterly.

"To watch a specific show" was the main reason cited for 21% of all visits to major network websites during the month.

Survey: 25% of users multitask

According to the latest Simultaneous Media Survey from BIGresearch 35% of users are multitasking now. During a television commercial break, users are chatting on the phone or online. While reading the paper, users are listening to radio or surfing the Internet for more information on a topic. BizReport reports.

"What does all this mean for advertisers? That the same old 30 second commercial isn't going to accomplish the same thing it did 30 years ago.

Gary Drenik, President of BIGresearch said, “New media options are impacting how consumers use traditional media. TV’s influence on consumers. . .declined, whereas new media options such as web radio, satellite radio, instant messaging and blogging all increased."

Let's look at television. 41% of users admitted to channel surfing during commercial breaks, 33% said they talk (via phone or room-to-room) during commercials and 30% say they simply tune commercials out."

Another day another survey

About 38% of consumers are watching TV shows online, 36% use their cell phones as entertainment devices and 45% are creating online content like Web sites, music, videos and blogs for others, according to a new-media survey from Deloitte & Touche.

The findings of the online survey of 2,081 U.S. consumers, conducted Oct. 25-31, were provided to The Hollywood Reporter before their official release next month.

... The percentage of consumers watching TV online jumped from the 23% figure reported in the previous study.

[via The Hollywood Reporter]

Over Half of Connected TV Viewers Also Watch on Alternative Devices

According to the recent release of The ChoiceStream 2007 Survey of Viewer Trends in TV and Online Video, 55% of connected consumers who watch TV watch some type of video on devices other than their TV sets, including their computers, mobile phones and digital media players (e.g., iPod). Not surprisingly, video-watching on these alternative devices is more popular among younger consumers (66%) than older ones (36%).

[via Media Post]

Study: TV tops in Internet video viewing

A majority of adult Internet users watch video online during a typical week, with TV programming ranking as the most popular content, according to a survey set to be released Monday. [via The Hollywood Reporter]

"The survey, conducted by the Cambridge, Mass.-based Web personalization firm Choicestream, found that:

-- 55% of those surveyed watch online video each week
-- 65% of that group reporting that they regularly watch traditional TV programming.
-- Overall, 39% of respondents said they watch TV on an alternate device, with the computer by far the most popular nontraditional method.

As expected, online video viewing is higher among younger respondents:

-- 66% of those between ages 18-24 saying they watch online video
-- 70% of respondents ages 18-34 saying they watch TV on the Web.

A majority of online TV viewers watch an hour or more per week as well. Thirty-four% of consumers said they watch one to three hours per week and 33% said they watch at least four hours."

More People Watching Full TV Shows Online

More people are watching full episodes of TV shows online, according to two studies released this week, reports NewTeeVee.

"According to Horowitz Associates, 16 percent of high-speed* Internet users watched full episodes of TV online each week, double the number from last year, while The NIelsen Company, in a recent survey of 1,599 Americans, found that 25 percent had watched full episodes of TV programs online in the past three months.

ABC and NBC were listed as the most-watched networks online in both studies."

UK Internet Users Want Fast Film Downloads

Internet users in the UK say that being able to download DVD-quality films fast is the service they most want from next-generation broadband, according to a survey from Broadbandchoices.co.uk.

[via WebPro News]

Nielsen: Younger Adults More Proactive in Catch-up TV Viewing

A new Nielsen study indicates that younger adult viewers are two-and-a-half times more likely than older viewers to proactively use technology such as DVRs, VOD, the Internet and MP3 players to catch up on television shows they have missed.

... The study also found that more than half of older viewers surveyed would do nothing or wait for reruns if they miss an episode.

[via World Screen]

TV time seen growing faster than Web

Time spent watching television will rise faster than leisure time spent on the Web through 2012, while a major audience for Internet video could take even longer to develop, consultancy Bain & Co said on Thursday, reports Reuters

"According to data exclusively released by Bain at the Reuters Media Summit in New York,U.S. viewers on average will spend nearly two more hours per week watching television by 2012, fueled by growth in video-on-demand choices and the use of digital video recorders.

In that same time frame, Internet use outside of the office is expected to rise by less than half an hour per week.

The data could be sobering to TV networks and Web media companies, which are investing heavily in Internet video sites and testing ways to make money off them through advertising."

Subfans

US TV series, uploaded onto video sharing sites right after their broadcast, are often translated into another language with subtitles within hours.

I've tried to find out who are these people, who spend hours translating entire episodes for the benefit of others. Here's what I found about the French language translators.

According to an October article from Sud Ouest, they are called "subfans" and for the most part are students, college kids, or TV series fans. They work in a group to subtitle all the episodes of an entire season using the Teletext transcripts which are available in English. The French translation is then synched with the original episode, taking into account commercials if there are any.

Apparently, subfans are very critical of the official translations done by French TV channels. They claim translations are "water downed" versions" of the original. As their dubbing is not endorsed by the networks, their work is considered rogue and counterfeit.

Amongst themselves and their faithful viewers, they are a subculture and enjoy a somewhat celebrity status online. Too much publicity can hurt them, as was the case for the Perfect Life team, which dissolved and shut down their website following too much media attention of their activity.

If you speak French, you can watch a video of Swiss TSR nouvo's special report aired last year, where they interviewed several people who dub TV series.

One Parisian woman using editing software subtitle workshop said it takes about 8 hours to translate one episode. On why she spends her time doing this? Because of the networks' poor quality of translation, she replied.

Nouvo also interviewed a copyright lawyer who blamed rogue translators for inciting people to watch copyright material on video sharing websites.

Interesting, last year, immensely popular American TV series represented 31% of TSR's programming. That's how popular they are.

Very small screen to always be by our side

The amount of time we spend watching television programs, videos and even films is set to double within a decade as mobile phones become our constant companion, a media futurist predicts. [via The Sydney Morning Herald]

"According to Professor Cole, who bases his prediction on a rolling survey of 50,000 consumers in 26 countries, "we are not going to watch it on someone else's schedule, it's going to escape from the home and it is going to [be viewed in] down time. We believe it [TV] is going to be our constant companion."

Twenty-five years ago we spent 16 hours a week in front of the only screen in our homes - the television. Today we spend 34 hours a week watching TV. But that figure is set to rise dramatically as our viewing moves seamlessly from the television screen to the personal computer, the digital music player and the mobile phone."

Inside the Mind of a 9 Year Old File-Sharer

Everyone knows that a significant number of file-sharers are teenagers and young adults and they get their share of press. But what about the true kids - the under 10’s ? TorrentFreak makes itself feel old trying to keep up with the agile mind of a 9 year old file-sharer, who goes by the name Hanna Montana. [via Laurent Haug's blog and Lunch over IP]

Hi Hannah! How old are you?

- I’m 10 in 12 days

When you started using LimeWire, did anyone ever mention that if you did certain things you might be breaking some laws?

- Why would they put music on the internet and invent mp3 players if it was against the law?

You mentioned you like Sean Kingstone - what if I told you that Sean Kingstone’s boss might send you a letter asking for money because you shared his album on LimeWire? What would you say to him?

- W.E! [whatever!]

Come on, play along with me. What would you say if he did?

- I’d say “tooooo strict!” and anyway he can’t make me do anything. He’s not the boss of me, he’s the boss of Sean Kingstone.

What do you think might happen if you didn’t pay him?

- Nothing. I’m too young to be charged by the government so he can’t charge me.

Report: Internet-to-TV Fizzles

Consumers aren't all that jazzed about connecting their computers to their television sets to watch long-form Internet video, according to one of the first studies on the topic, reports TVWeek.

"Marquest Media & Entertainment Research found that only 20 percent of study respondents said watching online TV shows or movies on a TV set was important, while 64 percent said it was of little or no importance.

"Internet-to-TV video routing, in isolation, may not be the killer app many Internet video producers and distributors have hoped for," said Paul Rule, president of Marquest. Consumers are content to watch video as it arrives, whether on a TV set or on the computer.

The study also found that online video growth may have tapped out. Among respondents who had not viewed online TV shows or movies, only 10 percent were interested in doing so."

Movies dumbing down science

arstechnica reports that the US educational system does not do a good job of producing scientifically-literate adults, and the media isn't helping.

"Two physicists from the University of Central Florida are now saying the combination of the two makes everything that much worse. They claim that as Hollywood mixes realistic special effects with the physically absurd, they're leaving a scientifically-illiterate public completely bewildered about what's actually possible here in the real world.

In a paper (PDF) published in the ever-popular Praxis der Naturwissenschaften Physik, they lay out their case as follows: "often the absurdity is hard to detect by people not very fluent in science literacy and untrained in critical thinking. In this way, Hollywood is reinforcing (or even creating) incorrect scientific attitudes that can have negative results for the society." They then go on to list a fine collection of the ways in which Hollywood's sending scientific literacy down the toilet."

.... Any time any show involving a crime lab (and there's a lot of those) does something involving DNA, the answers arrive within minutes. Reality suggests hours or days are more likely."

Read more

Internet use could kill off local newspapers, study finds

News audiences are ditching television and newspapers and using the Internet as their main source of information, in a trend that could eventually see the demise of local papers, according to a new study Wednesday, reports the AFP.

"As online use has increased, the audiences of older media have declined," Harvard University professor Thomas Patterson said in a report on the year-long study issued by Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

"In the past year alone... newspaper circulation has fallen by three percent, broadcast news has lost a million viewers," said the study, entitled "Creative Destruction: An Exploratory Look and News on the Internet."

Traffic to websites that post news produced by a third source, including search engines and service providers, aggregators, increased across the board between April 2006 and the same month in 2007."

UGC Killing Our Culture. Book review

Andrew Keen hates user-generated content. The author of recent nonfiction release "The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture" believes that homemade online media is killing the economic viability and independence of quality content, replacing the Springsteens and Truffauts in our culture with a meaningless stream of low-brow distraction and product placement. The Daily Reel reports.

"He argues that the homemade media that has become such an important part of Web culture over the past few years is largely worthless, and that mass culture was of a higher caliber when the media gatekeepers had greater power to decide who would be famous and what we would all watch.

... Put simply, Keen just doesn't think everyone deserved to be famous for 15 minutes.

"We're creating a culture of resentment in which everyone thinks they have a right to some sort of cultural visibility," he says. "People don't have that right. Sure, you have a right to be seen, but you don't have any natural right to a mass international audience. You earn that right. … There's a scarcity of talent and there's a scarcity of who can be successful. The reality is that we only have a certain amount of time in the day to watch and to read to listen."

Little Impact on Traditional Television Viewing From Broadband Video Use

An estimated 81 million people, or 63% of the 129 million people who access the Internet over broadband in the U.S., watch broadband video at home or at work, according to new research conducted by Nielsen.

This number increased from 70 million in September 2006 to 81 million in March 2007, a jump of 16% in just six months.

The analysis also showed that traditional home television ratings are minimally, if at all, affected by broadband video viewing over the Internet.

The multi-phased study -- A Barometer of Broadband Content and Its Users -- provides the first comprehensive look at the relationship of broadband video consumption at home and at work to traditional television viewing behavior. It also presents a detailed analysis of specific television network viewing preferences among broadband video users across all key demographics."

[Press release]

New generation of 'screen kids'

Children are losing out on family life thanks to technology, says The Watching, Wanting and Wellbeing report from the National Consumer Council (NCC). The Guardian reports.

"TVs and computers are the "electronic babysitters" for a generation of children who are losing out on family life and becoming more materialistic, a report says today.

The study paints a picture of a breed of "screen kids" who are spending more and more time watching TV and surfing the net in their bedrooms, unsupervised by adults.

... The authors, Agnes Nairn, Jo Ormrod and Paul Bottomley, also found that materialistic children were more likely than others to argue with their family, have a lower opinion of their parents and suffer from low self-esteem.

... Dr Nairn, a researcher on children and marketing and affiliate professor of marketing at EM-Lyon Business School, told the Guardian: "The effect of so much television viewing and computer usage is that things are replacing people and family relationships are suffering. This is a bad cycle."

How the Iraqi media covers the United States

It's ridiculously easy for anyone with an Internet connection to see how the U.S. media is covering Iraq. But it's nearly impossible to find out how the Iraqi media covers the United States. That is, unless you are fluent in Arabic, have a deep understanding of all the factions jostling for power in Iraq, scan the Internet obsessively, and basically dedicate yourself full time to the job. Foreign Policy Blog reports.

That's exactly what Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have done for their report,"Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas". In their 74-page report (pdf), the two analysts find that Sunni insurgents are spreading their message through a rich array of media—disseminating slick daily press releases, printing weekly and monthly magazines, posting video clips, and producing full-length feature films.

But messages from the insurgents are hardly unified. There are platforms for those sympathetic to al Qaeda, websites for the Baathist "resistance" movements, and postings from revolutionary brigades. These diverse groups have one thing in common when communicating with Iraqis: They're flexible, and they're fast.

... Global jihadists from abroad are better than Iraqis at disseminating the message of jihad. After all, it's probably a lot easier to spread propaganda from a computer in, say, Damascus (or London or Glasgow, for that matter) than it is from Mosul.

Although it may be hard to log in from Iraq, it seems like everyone there's got a cell phone. And what do people like to watch on their phones? As RFE/RL president Jeffrey Gedmin said Thursday, they like to look at "traditional" pornography, and they like to watch "political pornography".