Streaming Media and Consumers

Here’s the evidence that the US public is ready for streaming media big time on the level already seen in Europe and the Pacific Rim. DVD and VHS are undergiong a very temporary up tick in circulation from recession weary consumers. Ultimately they will be a small niche market for libraries like vinyl and cassettes.
ResourceShelf points out these statistics:
Wow! Over 81 Percent of the U.S. Internet Audience Viewed Online Video in August Viewing an Average of 9.7 Hours of Content
From the Announcement:
“August 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, showing that 161 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month, the largest audience ever recorded. Online video reached another all-time high in August with more than 25 billion videos viewed during the month, with Google Sites accounting for more than 10 billion.
Google Sites continued to rank as the top U.S. video property in August as it surpassed the 10 billion videos viewed threshold, representing 40 percent of all videos viewed online. YouTube.com accounted for 99 percent of all videos viewed at the Google Sites property. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 547 million (2.2 percent) followed by Viacom Digital with 539 million videos viewed (2.1 percent) and Hulu with 488 million (1.9 percent).
More than 161 million viewers watched an average of 157 videos per viewer during the month of August. Google Sites attracted 121.4 million unique viewers during the month (82.8 videos per viewer), followed by Microsoft Sites with 54.9 million viewers (10 videos per viewer) and Yahoo! Sites with 51.6 million viewers (6.9 videos per viewer).”
Other Facts from the Report:
+ 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
+ The average online video viewer watched 582 minutes of video, or 9.7 hours.
+ 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
+ 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
+ The average Hulu viewer watched 12.7 videos, totaling 1 hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer.
+ The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.
Source: comScore”
Stephen