According to a new AP-AOL poll of over 3,000 US adults (including 1,347 online video users) only 20% of online video watchers (269) viewed or downloaded a full-length film or TV program:
Overall, more than half of Internet users have watched or downloaded video. News clips were the most popular, seen by 72 percent of online video viewers, followed by short movie and TV clips, music videos, sports highlights and user-generated amateur videos.
The survey also found:
- Users of online video are drawn to its convenience and accessibility, but the bulk of them say their television viewing habits remain unchanged.
- One-third of video viewers — higher among high-speed Internet users — say they watch more video on the Internet now than a year ago.
- Urbanites and suburbanites — who have high-speed connections at home in greater numbers than rural residents — are more likely to have watched video online.
- Forty-six percent of video watchers with high-speed service view video at least once a week, compared with 22 percent of dial-up users. Dial-up users also were more likely to complain about download times.
This is a classic case of “half-empty” or “half full.” Some people might argue 20% isn’t so bad and it’s still very early for online video. People are clearly watching more video online but it’s shorter form content, chiefly because the user experience for longer programming is simply not as good as TV. So there’s the opportunity for IPTV and on-demand cable: providing the choice of the Internet and video search with the traditional viewing experience of TV.
An alternative scenario is: I download video and then transfer it for viewing to a DVR or other device associated with my TV. That doesn’t exactly help portals like AOL Video/In2TV but it connects TV’s better user experience with the search functionality and choice of online.
Screenwerk 
September 8, 2006 at 10:06 pm
[…] Interesting to consider: how this may affect NetFlix and whether consumers will actually use these services. A new AP-AOL survey cast doubt on how many consumers were using or would use such “full-length” video download sites in the near term. […]
September 12, 2006 at 11:05 am
[…] AT&T has launched a broadband TV (not IPTV) service. It costs $20 per month for any subscriber with a broadband connection. This is watching TV online. (But see AP-AOL survey.) Content is similar to that available on cable TV. No ads other than those that appear during the broadcasts. Somewhat strangely, mobile video content aggregator Mob is providing the content to the service. […]
October 4, 2006 at 4:42 pm
[…] Here are conflicting data (Hitwise vs. comScore) on who’s in the lead in terms of broadband video market share. And here’s an AP-AOL survey that shows consumers’ general ambivalence about watching full-length online video. […]
January 30, 2009 at 4:30 pm
[…] retrospect, we might have posted fewer, longer clips. It’s a double-edged sword because viewer fatigue could set in with longer clips. They might not have watched the whole segment. Some people might have avoided the clips altogether […]