In this report, we come down firmly on the side of opportunity. The fact is that watching video has become an integral part of Internet usage for most people. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project (2):

The majority of adult Internet users in the U.S. (57%) report watching or downloading some type of online video content, and 19% do so on a typical day.

Almost three-quarters of broadband users (74%) who have high-speed connections at both home and work watch or download video online. For those who have high-speed access only at home, 66% report online video consumption, compared with 39% of home dial-up users.

Roughly one in three (31%) Internet users ages 18-29 said they watched or downloaded some type of video on a typical day during the period of the Pew survey. By comparison, 18% of Internet users ages 30-49, 12% of those 50-64 and 10% of those 65 and older watch or download any type of video on the average day.

In short, Internet Video isn't going away. So, how can IPTV service providers take advantage of that viewership?

There are Internet Video broadcast services in testing and small-scale deployment. Most of these services focus on sending video to PCs, although some are deploying their own set-top boxes. We don't believe that either option will represent a major threat to IPTV service providers for several years, because of the business issues related to distributing high-quality licensed content over the Internet.

In short, Internet Video represents a remarkable opportunity to IPTV service providers to expand their audience, generate more advertising revenues and hold onto subscribers once they acquire them. This report is intended to help IPTV service providers to understand and implement their own Internet Video services.

(1) “IPTV” in this report refers to video services distributed over a managed IP-based network; “Internet Video,” on the other hand, refers to video delivered on the public Internet on a best-effort (unmanaged) basis.
(2) Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking Survey, February 15 - March 7, 2007.

This report is part of the IPTV Tracking Service published by the Multimedia Research Group, Inc.