20% of TV viewers prefer TVoIP

Dear AT&T and Comcast, we know that this has to be driving you crazy. You’ve added bandwidth at great expense and dedicated it to pay TV via Digital cable or a closed IPTV system. Who could have predicted viewers prefer to watch programming on demand rather than on your schedule? Since they are watching commercials either way, why would they they prefer to not pay extra to view?  How dare consumers prefer a big dumb pipe that they control? Now, you’re pushing triple play and bandwidth caps in a soft economy. No wonder your take rate is starting to suck. We’ve told you before, but lets rey again: The world wants a big dumb pipe, not a bundle of scheduled programming with broadband on the side.

Now about that 20%. It comes from a new survey:

It showed that 50 percent of people viewing TV on the Web are watching programs as they become available and “appear to be beginning to use the computer as a substitute for the television set,” Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI), which conducted the poll, said.

The other half are using the Internet to watch programs they have missed, or to re-watch segments or episodes they have already seen, IMMI, a company which links media exposure to consumer action, added.

“This is the first study to show there are a significant amount of people watching primetime shows online who are not watching some portion of those shows on television,” Amanda Welsh, head of research for IMMI, said in a statement. (Reuters)