ource: SyFy Portal
Feb-16-2007
Whether it be iTunes or some illegal torrent stream catalog, "Battlestar
Galactica" by many accounts is making a huge dent in the digital
download market. But how much of an effect is this alternative medium
having on the overall television industry? Not much, says ratings giant
Nielsen Media Research.
Representatives from Nielsen told national clients Thursday in Orlando,
Fla., that while more people watch television on computers or portable
devices than ever before, it's still only a niche part of the market.
The good news is, however, that many who choose to watch television
shows online don't necessarily need a video iPod or other device, and
are quite comfortable in doing nothing more than vegetating in front of
their computer.
According to statistics compiled by Nielsen over a three-week period
last month, just 19 percent of households have at least one form of
personal video device, the majority being a portable DVD player. A much
smaller market use video-enabled cellular phones while only 4 percent of
the total household base in the United States have a video-enabled iPod
or MP3 player, Nielsen officials said.
"Playing video on a personal device has not yet become an ingrained
habit," officials said in a release. "Even among PVD owners, about
two-thirds say that it has been more than a week since they watched
something on their portable player."
When iPod owners were surveyed, 40 percent of them said they watched
video downloaded through the Internet, but not on their iPods
themselves, meaning they watched through iTunes or their personal
computer instead. Even worse for television shows, the average iTunes
user plays video files for only two and a half minutes per day on
average, while they may spend more than 50 minutes per day listening to
audio files.
If advertisers were to start hitting this market, however, they would be
hitting some key demographics. Nielsen reports that the users of
personal devices tend to have higher incomes, more education and larger
families -- aspects that are near and dear to many advertisers' hearts.
That is no surprise, however, since such niche trends tend to attract
more of those types of people anyway.
As far as digital video recorders, or DVRs, a vast majority of recorded
shows are watched the same day, whether it be news and sports, daytime
dramas, or sitcoms and primetime dramas. And while households with DVRs
watch significantly less live television than households without DVRS,
most of that difference is made up after seven days of DVR playback,
Nielsen said.
Like iPod users and such, DVR owners tend to be younger, better educated
and have higher incomes than the average U.S. household. But don't count
VCRs out yet. They contributed 2.4 percent of toal broadcast primetime
ratings in January, but continue to fall, as it sat at 3.1 percent in
January 2006.
What does that mean for shows like "Battlestar Galactica" and even
"Lost"? It's more likely episodes will be recorded by DVR and played
back later than downloaded on the Internet. However, numbers showing
viewers who did DVR the show, but watch it soon after the broadcast,
could actually be converted into extra income for networks, as Nielsen
officials believe that the sooner the DVR plays back the episode, the
more likely viewers are to watch some of the commercials.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
