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 The Nielsen Company for The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM). This number increased from 70 million in September 2006 to 81 million in March 2007, a jump of 16% in just six months.
CTAM said the report, which is titled Barometer of Broadband Content and Its Users, also shows that traditional home television ratings are minimally, if at all, affected by broadband video viewing over the Internet, because broadband viewing was found largely to be incremental new viewing rather than a substitute for traditional television viewing.
Some other key findings from the report include:
- Online video (including broadband video at work and in the home) was shown to add to overall video viewing more frequently than it replaced traditional television viewing in the home, representing a net audience gain to total television viewing.
- Thirty-three percent of those surveyed indicated that watching video over broadband Internet increased their television viewing time, vs. 13 percent who indicated it decreased their traditional television viewing.
"There have been major changes over the last 30 years in how television is consumed-the remote control, portable TV, time shifting DVRs-but one of the most dramatic promises to be television via the Internet," said Tim Brooks, Research Committee liaison to the CTAM Board of Directors and Executive Vice President, Research, Lifetime Television. "This new study helps us understand the impact of this radically new method of distribution both as it is now, in its infancy, and how it is likely to unfold over the next few years."http://www.ctam.com
