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Online Video vs. TV & Games vs. Movies – New Studies Break Down How Americans Like to Spend Their Free Time

Justin Kerr — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:20:48 -0500

New research from NPD and Nielsens reveals some fairly interesting information on how Americans spend their free time, and the results might surprise you. On the gaming front, 63 percent of Americans reported having played some form of video game within the past six months, while only 43 per cent admitted to having gone to see a movie in the theatre. This bodes well for the gaming industry which reported that consumers now spend roughly one third of their entertainment budget on games, which equates to about $38 per person per month on average for content.

On the video front, Neilsen has released a separate study that shows online video might not be as big a threat as the major TV networks are letting on. Despite the rapid rise in online video viewing, consumers on average only watched about three hours per month via the Internet. That is up an hour from the results last year, but still only represents about 1.1 percent of total video consumption, which is totally dominated by traditional TV.

The other interesting statistic is that when it comes to video, apparently we are now watching more TV than ever before. The average American now consumes about 153.5 hours of TV per month, which works out to over 5 hours per day. This study excludes non-legitimate video sources such as peer to peer networks, but includes numbers pulled from Hulu, You Tube, and many other online video sites. Want to read the whole study? Click the link to read the whole report.

So how do you spend your spare time?

Rumor: Disney Might Take an Equity Stake in Hulu

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:15:47 -0500

The Walt Disney CO and Hulu.com have revived talks over the addition of ABC programming to the popular video-on-demand service. According to a report on paidcontent.org, which cites anonymous sources, Disney may settle for an equity stake in Hulu for allowing ABC programming on the video website. The talks have been described as “serious” and “definitely real” by different sources.

Although major ABC shows are reported to be at the heart of the discussions, the sources haven’t ruled out the possibility of the talks being expanded to include more content from Disney’s stable. Hulu is a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp with each having a 45% stake. A source has revealed that one of the arrangements being discussed is to allow Disney to be on equal footing with the two majority stakeholders.

Meanwhile, Disney and Youtube have struck a deal paving the way for ad-backed Youtube channels featuring videos from Disney and ESPN. These video channels will only be available in the U.S and won’t feature entire shows from the Disney stable. The ESPN channel and the ABC channel are scheduled to go live in April and May respectively. But, according to another paidcontent.org report, Disney’s deal with Youtube will not affect its talks with Hulu.

British Regulators Veto Unified Video-on-Demand Service

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:03:19 -0600

UK’s Competition Commission has disapproved Project Kangaroo, a proposed Hulu-esque VOD service, which was supposed to provide video content – mostly free videos - from three of its joint owners, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. The fear of Kangaroo’s inevitable hegemony led the Commission to veto the alliance. The Commission felt that the video-on-demand service would have resulted in the “loss of competition” between its proprietors.

The three companies expressed their disconsolation in a joint statement. “We are disappointed by the decision to prohibit this joint venture. While this is an unwelcome finding for the shareholders, the real losers from this decision are British consumers. This is a disproportionate remedy and a missed opportunity in the further development of British broadcasting,” the statement reads. Although consumers would have most certainly devoured the service, the Commission's findings appear to be reasonable.

Image Credit: ElectricPig

iTunes Reaches 200 Million TV Episodes Sold, Adds Extended HD Lineup

Andy Salisbury — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:02:14 -0500

While there’s no doubt that Apple’s insanely popular iTunes store would hit this milestone, they felt it necessary to announce that they’ve finally hit 200 million sales of TV episodes, with more than one million of those being HD episodes sold just last month.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services, said in a statement this past Thursday, “We've got an incredible Fall 2008 TV lineup with over 70 primetime comedies and dramas, including many of the most popular shows on TV in stunning HD. With over 200 million episodes sold, iTunes customers have proven they love watching television on their computer, iPod, iPhone and TV with Apple TV.”

Thanks to the partnership of major television networks such as Bravo, Comedy Central, Disney Channel, ESPN, FX, HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon, Sci Fi, Showtime and USA, these sales don’t look they’re going to slow down anytime in the near future.

For those keeping track, the iTunes store now offers over eight million songs, over 30,000 TV episodes and over 2,500 films. Almost makes a man never want to leave his house.

Image Credit: Apple, Inc.

Amazon Launches Video on Demand, Takes Aim at Netflix and Co.

Paul Lilly — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:04:06 -0500

This time last year, most of us would have predicted that Blu-ray and HD-DVD would still be going at it, but even with a victor now declared in the high definition format war, digital downloads and streaming content are ruling the roost, just as Michael Bay prophesized (minus the corporate conspiracy theory). Hoping to become king of the digital hill, Amazon.com is introducing a new online store of TV shows and movies.

What's that you say, Unbox isn't new? That's right, but this isn't Unbox. Amazon Video on Demand departs from the company's first attempt at offering a digital video download service, and this time around, customers will not be required to download special software to the watch programs they buy. And in another departure from Unbox, the new service will extend support beyond just Windows PCs and TiVo set-top boxes.

Catalog and Studio Support

Customers of Amazon's new store will have access to roughly 40,000 movies and television shows from the get-go, which is roughly four times as big as Netflix's catalog of streaming titles. That number looks to get even bigger, as films and TV shows from nearly all the major studios and television networks are available to Amazon's customers, save for Disney and ABC.

Start Watching Right Away, at Home or Away!

In addition to a robust catalog of titles, just as with Unbox, customers can begin watching purchased content immediately after ordering instead of waiting for the download to complete. But unlike Unbox and other similar services, the first two minutes of all movies and TV shows will start playing whenever a customer visits a title's product page.

Even better, customers won't be tied to a specific location, nor will they need to download a purchased video to a hard drive. Instead, viewers can store a selection in their online video library (dubbed "Your Video Library"), so you can begin watching an episode at home, stop it midway through, and then pick up again where you left off once you get to work. In the words of the Guinness guys, 'Brilliant! '

High Definition or Bust

Whether or not high definition content will be offered from the beginning remains to be seen, but on a promising note, Amazon has cut a deal with Sony Electronics to place its Internet video store on the Sony Bravia line of HDTVs. Not only does that hint at offering HD content, but as the New York Times Online puts it, Amazon can be seen "pursuing the technology and media world's holy grail -- an internet pipeline to the TV."

What about the Competition?

Despite everything Amazon's Video on Demand has going for it, the road to digital dominance won't be an easy one. Netflix, whose streaming service was once viewed as a perk, now looks to pounce on the mainstream market. Even though it sports a much smaller catalog, Netflix recently announced a partnership with Microsoft that will give its subscribers the ability to stream videos to their Xbox 360 console, and it isn't charging anything extra for the bodacious update. And for those who don't own or plan to purchase an Xbox 360, Roku's $99 set-top box provides an affordable incentive to keep subscribers from migrating elsewhere.

Netflix isn't the only one Amazon needs to worry about either. Apple's iTunes video store can be considered a contender, along with several others that have begun saturating the marketplace. Still, between the name recognition, a large catalog, studio support, and what looks to be a nifty interface, Amazon appears to have a lot going for it.

A limited number of Amazon.com customers will receive invitations to test drive the new beta service before Amazon blows the doors wide open later this summer. The question is, can Amazon Video on Demand succeed where Unbox hasn't?

Image Credit: setteB.it