I need to get lunch, digest it and then digest these numbers somewhat. My mind is spinning now -- though that may be due to too much caffeine. It's rare that you get to hear the television folks talk about how great things are for TV while talking about how great the other platforms are too. The telling points from the conference call for me were:
1. only 10% watching both on TV and the Internet -- 90% TV only
2. only 2/10ths of 1% watching exclusively on the Internet. Mobile and VOD growing but tiny
3. nice that NBC will be tracking TAMi (total audience measurement index) numbers for all shows in the fall.
click the thumbnail below for an easier to read version of the TAMi numbers for the olympics through Monday:
Holly, I agree with you down the line, but those tech-saavy people also most amount to less than two-tenths of 1%, at least judging from the TV ratings. As an aside anecdotal data: MTV crows that Jonas Brothers did 60,000 hours of online streams among 6 million people. 1.6 minutes per stream. Yay! (not surprising, people do not usually watch for more than 3 minutes on computer!). MTV also says “bigger than the Hills finale” in terms of streaming. But the Hills finale did over 4 million hours of online viewing, even 60,000 hours would have represented well less than 2%.
I think people generally overrate the volume of internet TV viewing. However, there are a few things about the Olympics that I think makes it less likely people will watch online. For the most part, people don't watch 3-4 hours of coverage straight through, they flip back and forth rather than watch the whole thing; it's difficult to 'flip' when you are watching online. Very few events are ones that a lot of people would actually search out; you might watch the swim trials or see two countries you've never heard of play water polo if they on TV, but you wouldn't make a point of seeking them out and watching them online. Most of the major events are delayed even online (thanks NBC, you're swell!). Even those that aren't delayed often have no commentary (unless I'm mistaken) and as obnoxious as the commentary can be, it is helpful when you're watching sports you rarely see.
Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the tech-savvy people more inclined to watch everything online have just linked into the European feeds to watch the important events live instead of waiting for NBC to put them up two days later.
Holly, I agree with you down the line, but those tech-saavy people also most amount to less than two-tenths of 1%, at least judging from the TV ratings. As an aside anecdotal data: MTV crows that Jonas Brothers did 60,000 hours of online streams among 6 million people. 1.6 minutes per stream. Yay! (not surprising, people do not usually watch for more than 3 minutes on computer!). MTV also says “bigger than the Hills finale” in terms of streaming. But the Hills finale did over 4 million hours of online viewing, even 60,000 hours would have represented well less than 2%.