Traditional TV Still Dominating But Online Video is Catching Up
In May 2011 Americans streamed more than 15 billion videos online — an all-time high.
Increasingly, traditional TV is battling to keep its place at the center of the living room; it now has to compete for viewers’ attention in a world of tablets, Facebook, smartphones and of course online video.
As Broadband Internet penetration continues to grow, so does online video. Several recent studies have released some interesting data that shows exactly where online video sits with consumers:
Who’s watching
1. Ethnically, Asian Americans are the biggest consumers of online video, watching more than 6 hours online a month. This is nearly four hours more than the next largest group!
2. The largest segment of the Internet video audience in the USA is adults aged 35-49 (27%), while the largest segment of the mobile video audience is 25-34 year olds (30%).
3. Americans aged 12-17 spent the most time watching video
A slightly worrying trend is that Americans who watch the most video online tend to watch less TV, which throws out the idea that people are watch more TV over all devices.
This behavior is led by those ages 18-34. According to Nielsen, the group of consumers exhibiting this behavior is significant but small. More than a third of the TV/Internet population is not streaming, whereas less than 1% are not watching TV.
Which countries are watching
Germany is not only the largest European market for online video viewing but also the most engaged at nearly 20 hours per viewer per month, while several other countries are not far behind.
When looking at total streams in the USA, YouTube was responsible for 8.9 billion streams then Hulu with 852 million and VEVO with 415 million.
YouTube is one of the key drivers of online video in all markets (with the exception of Turkey where Facebook leads). Local online video destinations ranked among the top three in Germany (ProSiebenSat.1 Sites), the UK (BBC Sites), France (Dailymotion.com) and Russia (Mail.ru Group), and the USA (Hulu, Netflix).
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