April 5, 2008
TVoIP in primetime: 9% of all full length episodes watched are viewed online
I won’t say I told you so, but here’s proof that online viewing goes much deeper than watching the exploits of Darwin Award candidates on Youtube. Almost 10% of all full length series views are now done online, and the percentage will continue to grow very rapidly.
Convergence estimates that 9 percent of all full-episode TV viewing was done online in 2007—a 3 percent jump from 2006. The firm predicts that the numbers will grow even further this year and next, to 14 percent in 2008 and 19 percent in 2009. As of 2010, Convergence expects 23 percent of broadcast and cable TV to be viewed online.
Shorter clips, however, are still the most popular things to watch online. Five times as many viewers watch clips of shows as those who watch full episodes, said the report, with 75 percent of the clip content originating from broadcast or cable TV content. Convergence estimates that this gap will get smaller as time goes on, but will still remain more popular than full shows. The firm expects clip-to-full-episode views to decline to a rate of three to one by 2011. (Ars Technica)
The bad news for the Telco / Cable duopoly is that this viewing is all done via the wide open net, not over their closed pay TV systems. We’ll soon see a wave of connected set top boxes that deliver open, web based TVoIP content to the big screen in the living room as easily as the pay TV box does today. When that happens, pay TV as a distribution channel unto itself will fade away like analog TV. Watch for the first network to offer the daytime soaps via TVoIP and online viewing will explode.
If I were invested in companies that are touting high profit potential in closed content delivery systems, I’d be planning my exit right now.
Comments on TVoIP in primetime: 9% of all full length episodes watched are viewed online »
Spot on about the short sale of the closed providers. Fact I see a paralell between the TVoIP world and the period of the 1930’s movie industry. Back then an evening of entertainment consisted of cartoons, a travelogue short and then the full length feature.
The parallel may not be perfect but I could see a packager like Hulu offer up a 3 hour experience — Short features, the full feature, a backgrounder and maybe 18 Downing Street to close out the evening. But unlike network TV and cable, the packager offers hundreds of things to see and options on how they are displayed.
Why not just do it all ala carte? That’s certainly an option. But I think most folks won’t want to spend the time to hunt and peck for what they want to watch. Provide a search for genre, actor, etc. Display it and let the customer pick from the options.