Few people could have foreseen that the Internet, which was
started as an efficient way to share documents, would evolve so quickly into a
medium for sharing video. But today, according to Nielsen/NetRatings,1 two-thirds of U.S. computer
users are using broadband connections, so most people now have enough bandwidth
to download or stream data-rich video files.
Because
it is available any time, from anywhere, a video clip on the Internet often
reaches more people than the same content broadcast on television. Consider
the video spoof that ABC-TV late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel made in
which he pretended that he was having an affair with actor Ben Affleck. The
video first aired on Kimmel’s show in the network’s most valuable time slot:
immediately following the 2008 Super Bowl, with 3.6 million viewers.
However,
when the video was posted on YouTube, the Internet audience quickly eclipsed
the TV audience. Within a week, according to USA Today,2 more than 5 million people watched it on
the Web.
This
is in line with a survey that found that TV programs are the most popular
content among viewers of online video.3
Choicestream, a Web personalization firm, found that two-thirds of the adults
who watch video online regularly watch network TV shows, far more than the 40
percent who watch user-generated videos.
NBC
and Fox recently launched Hulu.com to allow viewers to watch episodes of
television shows online. According to CNN,4 Warner Bros. Television is developing TheWB.com to present
its own TV shows on the Internet.
Both
of these moves reflect the growing realization by the networks that viewers are
increasingly watching video online. Surveys by comScore Networks reveal that
Americans viewed 11.5 billion videos on the Internet in the month of March
2008; a 64 percent increase in one year, and a 13 percent gain over the
previous month. Three of every four U.S. Internet users, or 139 million
Americans, watched an average of 235 minutes of video online during March.5
The
top 10 sites by number of videos viewed in March were:
- Google, including YouTube, with 4.4
billion videos
- Fox Interactive Media, including MySpace,
478 million
- Yahoo, 328 million
- Viacom Digital, 249...
