It wasn’t that long ago that the only thing reason anyone ‘watched’ anything on the Internet was, as the song title says, the “Internet is for Porn.” That was then. This is now. According to the Pew Internet Survey, Internet TV watchers has almost doubled since 2006.
The survey, which was completed in April 2009, showed that video-sharing sites like YouTube and Google Video are growing by leaps and bounds across all demographic groups. In 2009, “62% of adult internet users have watched a video on these sites, up from 33% who reported this in December 2006.” Young adults, to no surprise are watching the most. “Nine in ten (89%) internet users ages 18-29 now say they watch content on video sharing sites, and 36% do so on a typical day.”
The Pew Research Center also found that online video is becoming “more deeply integrated into daily life, and has started move into the spaces that are typically reserved for traditional television viewing. Overall, 19% of internet users say they use video sharing sites on a typical day. In comparison, just 8% of internet users reported use of the sites on a typical day in 2006.”
This, of course, goes with the growth of broadband connectivity. In an earlier Pew study, Home Broadband Adoption 2009, Pew found that “Broadband connectivity has helped to set the stage for high-quality viewing experiences and broaden the appeal of online video content.” 69% of people with high-speed connections are watching “video on the sharing sites, and 23% do so on a typical day.”
It’s not just video clips though. Movie and TV sites like Hulu are also gathering viewers. “More than a third of internet users (35%) now say they have viewed a television show or movie online. In comparison, just 16% of internet users said they had watched or downloaded movies or TV shows when asked a similar question in 2007.”
Of these watchers, “23% say they have connected their computer to a television screen so they could view video from the internet on their TV. That amounts to roughly 8% of all Internet users.”
The potential for Internet TV viewing is much higher. According to a Quixel Research report, Connected TV Revenues Top $1B in Q2 2009 (PDF Link) ,in “Q2 2009, the growth of TVs with built-in internet capabilities enabling content such as YouTube, Netflix, TiVo, Facebook etc, or ‘Connected TVs’ was up significantly in both units and value compared to the prior quarter.”
In the report, Tamaryn Pratt, Quixel Research’s principal, said “The timing is right for consumer adoption of Connected TVs. The majority of people already have high speed broadband in their homes, and with the increased availability of premium content via the internet, such as movies, UGC (user generated content), etc., manufacturers are capitalizing on consumers’ desire to watch ‘programming’ on a much larger screen than their computer monitors.”
However, Quixel Research estimates that only 15 to 20% of Ethernet or Wi-Fi capable TVs are actually connected to the Internet. Given the rise of interest in Internet TV, wide-spread broadband availability, and network capable TVs, it’s easy to see why the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, reported that we’re now in “an important moment in the evolution of America’s television and movie viewing habits.”
How big? While it doesn’t get the headlines, Pew reports that “Watching online videos on sites like YouTube is more prevalent than the use of social networking sites (46% of adult internet users are active on such sites), podcast downloading (19% of internet users do this) and the use of status updating sites like Twitter (11% of internet users do this).” Internet TV is on its way.