SubscribeSubscription television providers should relax: Americans are not moving away from watching television on television sets. Nielsen’s Three Screen Report, issued today, finds most Americans are not fundamentally changing the way they watch TV — they are simply taking advantage of more convenient ways to watch.
The report shows considerable year over year growth in terms of time spent for Digital Video Recorder viewing (up 21.1%) and online video (up 34.9%) since the fall of 2008. Given the consistent spike in usage among the three screens of television, Internet and mobile, consumers are clearly adding video platforms to their schedule, rather than replacing them.
“Americans today have an insatiable appetite for not only content, but also choice,” says Nic Covey, director of cross-platform insights at Nielsen. “Across all age groups, we see consumers adding the Internet and mobile devices to their media diet — consuming media anytime and anywhere possible.”
Nearly 99% of television viewing is spent watching it on a television set, according to Nielsen’s findings. But consumers are also discovering broadband and mobile viewing can add convenient new options, and are taking advantage of them:
- In 3Q09, the average American watched 31 hours of TV per week, with 31 minutes spent in playback mode with their DVR.
- In addition, each week the average consumer spent 4 hours on the Internet and 22 minutes watching online video.
- The average consumer spent 3 minutes watching mobile video each week.
The biggest fans of mobile video are teenagers, some spending just over seven hours per month watching video on their phones. Watching television on a broadband connection is a popular trend among those aged 18-44, one noticed by Comcast chief operating officer Steve Burke. Burke spoke about the trend at the recent Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing’s three day conference in Denver. He noted his own children now prefer to watch their shows on a laptop from one of the free online services and not on the family television.
Allowing young viewers to grow up assuming they can watch anything, anywhere, for potentially no charge is a very dangerous proposition for people in Burke’s business.
Stephen Burke, Comcast Chief Operating Officer
“An entire generation is growing up with that preference,” Burke said. “If we don’t do something to change that behavior so they respect copyrights on the side of content provider, and cable subscriptions or satellite subscriptions or telco subscriptions on the side of the distributors, we are going to wake up with a lot of ingrained habits going the wrong way and we will see cord-cutting.”
Comcast has two ways to make sure viewers learn their lessons about paying for what they watch:
- The formalized introduction of the forthcoming usage meter, better enforcing Comcast’s 250GB monthly limit for their broadband service. Watching a lot of online video will take a major bite out of your broadband usage allowance.
- The launch of Comcast’s Fancast Xfinity TV, a service that will allow only existing Comcast cable-TV package subscribers access to many of their favorite shows online, on demand, for no additional charge. That new name comes courtesy of Comcast’s marketing gurus, to replace what readers better know as: TV Everywhere.
The usage meter and “authenticated subscribers-only” pay wall are Comcast’s one-two punch to keep subscribers from eventually dropping their cable-TV package to watch television exclusively over their broadband connection.
Cable operators already treat companies like Netflix, which use broadband to deliver an increasing number of movies and TV shows on-demand to subscribers, as a major threat. Insight Communications CEO Jamie Howard called Netflix the equivalent of the third largest cable operator in the country in terms of content delivered. That’s content not owned or directly managed by Insight or other cable providers.
Some in the industry believe who owns and controls online video will eventually decide the winners and losers in the subscription television business. Derrick Frost, founder and CEO of Invision.TV, an Internet video search engine, warned the outcome of the battle can’t come soon enough. Otherwise, consumers “will find other ways — legally or illegally — to access it.”
“In addition, each week the average consumer spent 4 hours on the Internet and 22 minutes watching online video”
Makes a 250 GB Cap seem quite generous for the average consumer.
That assumes several things, most importantly whether or not Comcast would leave the cap at 250GB. Once established, that number can be easily changed downwards. Time Warner thought 40GB was plenty, and Frontier still thinks 5GB is so. Establishing the meter makes it simple and easy to juggle the numbers to maximize profits.
Just remember what happened in Canada, where the throttles went on, the caps were forced on customers (and subsequently lowered by some providers), and the rate increases just kept right on coming.
Phil you are jumping ahead of yourself and assuming. Comcast are putting out a tracker so that the average Joe can see their consumption, This is a good thing as the average user will be able to see that they really have nothing to fear. Sure the vociferous minority will still squeal and post a bunch of inaccurate stuff as seen in recent threads but at the end of the day people will be accurately able to see their usage.
The post above shows what an average person does, they watch 22 minutes of online video, they don’t download 4 HD movies every week, or one a day as some have posted, they use the internet 4 hours a WEEK. Given that data even a 40 GB cap looks good.
Sure things may change, and sure those that use the internet as their prime source of entertainment or should I say “life” may have to pay more but the average person will not be impacted. If those that spend most of their waking hours downloading content have to pay for that usage, its probably about time.
I don’t believe its a cash grab, its paying for what you use as most things in life are, Gas, Electricity food, Beer..whatever, you pay for your decisions in life. At the end of the day content has to paid for whether its from an on line provider or the traditional method using a cable or satellite service.
There is always the sharing method, but now those that share have to pay for their sharing!
Even if these numbers are an accurate representation of how much time people spend on the Internet, you assume that usage is going to stay static across the board for years to come. Online video streaming of HD is still new. It was only this year that Netflix and other services started offering streaming services. Also, this entails only video only. It doesn’t include online gaming or other activities that rack up data. Just this year, there was a report that stated the average gamer used 60GB/month and you implied that 40GB sounds reasonable, ok. Personally, I hope they don’t implement a cap that you are so readily to accept for some odd reason. In the end, it will stifle innovation.
I think people spend alot more than that time on the internet.
22 minutes of watching online video? 4 hours online? Where do these numbers come from?
Is playing a game on xbox 360 counting that? Probably not. If they did a survey of people, I gaurantee you that most people with boadband do not even know when they are using the internet and when they are not. The number is probably a “when my Internet Explorer is opened.”
Forget about all the other applications that access the internet on a regular basis on your computer or any of the other devices that are connected to the home network. Everytime you turn on your connected Xbox 360 or Wii, it connectes to the internet. Everytime you browse the Xbox 360 selection of available games or movies.
I am willing to bet, most people are not even counting playing video games. World of Warcraft has OVER 4 million subscribers in the US. That is only 1 online video game. On average, they spend way more than 4 hours just playing that game.
Almost every game has an online component now. Services like Steam and Direct2Drive are getting more popular as software is not available locally for the PC anymore.
DirectTV has Video On Demand that uses your broadband connection to deliver movies. I am willing to bet, that most people do not even count “purchasing” a Video on Demand movie as using the internet.
Anyone who has an iTouch is using their internet most likely. Even people with iPhones may use their internet and not really understand what it is.
I really wish people would stop claiming they know how much time the average person spends on the internet. They don’t – becuase the average person doesn’t know.
“22 minutes of watching online video? 4 hours online? Where do these numbers come from?”
They come from a survey of average people! These average people do not read Stop the Cap or Dslreports, they do not spend every waking minute at the computer..they are the average consumer. Don’t confuse your habits with everyone else.
“World of Warcraft has OVER 4 million subscribers in the US”
There are around 217 million adults in the USA, this means 213 million people are not subscribing to WOW. See my point?
“I really wish people would stop claiming they know how much time the average person spends on the internet. They don’t – becuase the average person doesn’t know.”
I really wish the non average people would stop telling average people what they know or do not know.
thanks
The average adult has no idea how much internet their families use. Now double that number for 2 adults in the house.
The average adult – I believe – does not want to police how much internet is being used in their house either. Why do you think that cell phone companies now have unlimited minute plans?
Take the 4 hours and 22 minutes and double that for each child.
A family does not have 1 internet access account per member of the family.
People equate Internet Explorer to the internet. That is a fact. They do not realize that almost every single application today every time you open it goes and talks to the manufacterer. Parents do not equate game systems as using their internet connection and may not even know how much their children use the internet. Not to mention iPhones and ITouch.
So, I say it again- the AVERAGE user has no idea how much they actually use the internet, much less their entire family.
If caps are implemented, they quickly will. TWC own data claimed that about 14% of their trial users in a small city went over their caps and paid on average of about $20 more.
14% of their users. Think about that. The city has a population of about 114,000 people.
I know 250Gb is alot of content. That is one of the reasons that Comcast generally gets a pass in my book until they change their policy. At some point in time, I think they will.
Of course, here were I live, TWC and Frontier at the only people in town. We know what they think is acceptable use.
Since you think you are so smart, who defines who is the “average” person, you? You come off as a know it all and an arrogant “loon”. And who says what I do isn’t average, you? I am tired of people like you telling me I use too much when you have absolutely no idea of how much I use or what I do. Average and excessive are terms that can be subjective and relative.
And by the way, that is just one game he was talking about and it had 4 million users for 1 game! There are thousands of online games my friend with millions of online gamers. 4 million is just a drop in a bucket.
Yep – not to mention al of the other MMO games or FPS games out there. There are also a tom of flash based game sites. Disney has 2 MMOs right now – Pirates of the Carribean and ToonTown.
There are literally hundreds of MMOs. On top of that, all the people that are playing Flacebook games at this point in time. Or keeping their pictures updated on Facebook/MySpace or whatever.
Online e-mail is a big thing to. I just moved all my mail to gmail, as I was tired of trying to save it all if I want to wipe out my computer. People are realizing it is alot easy for an online site like google, MS, or Yahoo to keep their mail (now that they offer large storage) than it is to pay someone to move thier mail to the new computer they just got.
There are even people that do not equate checking their mail as using the internet. The internet is “The Web” to them. If I check my mail in Windows Mail, I am not suing the internet. When I send this 5Mb mail message fill of photos, I am not downloading anything so it doesn’t count! I have heard this all.
People have thought the same thing for ages. There once was a time, before broadband and always connected computers when the average person knew when they connected to the internet. A box came up and told them becuase they had to dial a modem to get there, and there was that familiar modem sounds that came from the computer. People knew that the computer was not talking to the internet, unless they TOLD it to.
That is not the case anymore, and there is no one to blame but the broadband companies themselves.
The new buggy manufacturers
Ill never understand why everybody thinks meters are such a
big deal or so important. These outfits can set the numbers
to what ever they want anytime they want to. No meters required.
Before there were meters – everyone was up in arms because no one knew what their consumption looked like. Now that there are meters that are being evaluated by an independent third party, everyone complains….
Meters are the next step to a hard cap. Don’t think for one minute that all the the change in direction from Comcast and meters coming out at the same time is not related.
From what I remember, Comcast has not been a problem really becuase it is considered a soft cap and it is really high. This is the next step. They are now looking to be a provider of content, not just the distributer.
Things will change in the Comcast world of broadband. It may take a little while, but meters is jus the start of it.
independent third party? Good luck on that one.
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