Nielsen's Jon Gibs, Vice President for Insights, Online and Cross Media has a piece up on Nielsen Wire suggesting that we do not watch TV shows online the same way we watch them on TV:
The broader usage patterns suggest that online video is, for the most part, a replacement of DVR use, or used by those who do not have immediate access to TV. In short, TV network content online is used to catch up with programming, and not typically as a replacement for TV viewing as results from our email survey showed.
What are some of the reasons you watch
TV shows on the Internet?Question % I forgot to watch a specific episode when it aired on TV 54% I am catching up on the current season of programming because I missed a large number of episodes 47% I am catching up on a past season of a program before the next season airs 33% I forgot to record a specific episode with my DVR or TiVo when it aired on TV 32% Another member of my household watches another program at the same time as the show I want to watch 18% I watch TV programming online when I am at work 12% I watch TV programming online when I travel 12% Source: The Nielsen Company – January 2009
In most cases you can count me in the "Oops, forgot to set the season pass on my DVR" camp (Hulu was already up to catch-up w/Human Target, thus the picture above), or for those rare occasions when there are more than 2 things I want to watch on at the same time, and it isn't something that is available via my cable's On Demand. Sadly, no FOX programming is available on my On Demand service.
I agree with them, but what point are they making really?
People would prefer to watch TV on a TV, but when two good shows are on at the same time or there’s a big game on during your favorite show you’re going to go to the internet to watch it or DVR it. That’s been established already.
The only thing to draw from this is that I think TV viewership overall (regular viewing + DVR + internet) is up.
The only shows I watch still on TV are the shows my whole family watches together (24, Lost) and premium channel stuff. Everything else I use hulu, it’s just easier.
Kevin, I think Nielsen’s point (that they have their reasons for being a bit subtle about) is “Cord Cutting and using online as a replacement for cable and satellite subscriptions is BS, and the people who are watching online are people who already subscribe to cable and satellite.
I’ll watch most shows online for the convenience of time and the ability to fastfoward past any particularly badly written parts. Heroes, for example has become about a 20% fastfoward-fest.
By going online, I can watch a 1/2 hour comedy in about 20 minutes, and a 1 hour drama in about 40 minutes. Multiply that by several shows per week and you can see that the free time it affords me adds up quickly. Multiply that per month and I’ve got hours and hours of more spare time than the average Live Viewer.
I’ve also watched shows online because they’d already been canceled. I was introduced to Firefly this way. Never heard of it until long after it was canceled. Pretty good show. I got the entire season and the Serenity movie from the internet.
The whole argument about online viewing versus broadcast is in itself diminishing. There’s no doubt that broadcast television is dying out, like print newspapers. It’s all going bye-bye. The only thing the provided intel may show is that broadcasters are very much still alive.. for now. Next year, another big writeup will come out and the percentages of people watching online for ANY reason will be higher. Rinse & Repeat. I’d guess that come 2025 all network broadcasters will have lost a good ~>50% of Live + SD compared to what they’re seeing right now.
This is no surprise. “People aren’t watching TV on TV anymore”…which is why they bought all those big plasma TVs, right?
I hate watching shows online. It’s really only a last resort for me.
I much prefer to watch TV on my HDTV and home theater which I spent quite a bit of money on, as opposed to my computer which I spent… less money on. With room for about 120 hours of HD on my DVR all the choices in the poll are pretty much eliminated, for me.
Canceled my Cable, and only watch on Hulu. Best bet and saved almost 90 bucks.
Hope we get more online TV.
Even low grade desktops (new ones) should have HD video capabilities. Most shows online come in HD now, so I use my great big HDTV, but run the video feed from my computer. Online and in High Def with surround sound.
Robert: I agree that this could support the claim that hulu.com, abc.com, nbc.com, cwtv.com, cbs.com are not heavy drivers of cable cutting. But of those sites measured only hulu would be a threat anyway. Cable cutter don’t rely in hulu. There’s Amazon VOD, iTunes, Netflix, Blockbuster-on-demand, etc and DVDs and torrents. I don’t really think any of that is addressed by this report. It just seems to be saying that DVR users (who probably color between the lines) use hulu as a failsafe.
Lurker, although not specifically addressed in this post, the fact is that there is no data to support the “cord cuttting” meme, and plenty to support the counter like overall TV provider subscriptions are not falling, people are shifting around (between cable, satcos and telcos) , but not cutting the cord entirely.
Bill,
Would you like to provide citations as to where this data about TV subscriptions can be found? Also, data is useless if an analysis is not performed on it.
What I mean by this is that the U.S. had a major television event happen this past summer, which was the digital-only transition for over the air TV broadcasts. Many pay-TV providers shifted their marketing campaigns to try to sign up consumers who had never had pay-TV service before. Additionally, since the original transition date was for February, these TV providers started this marketing shift around the Fall of 2008. A hypothesis could be made that cord cutting did in fact happen, but that it may have been masked in the data by the additional sign ups of customers due to the digital transition.
I have 2 DVRs, one records 2 shows at once and I never watch anything live. I wait at least 30 minutes before starting and skip the ads. Rarely do I have 3 shows on at the same time, Thursday night is the only time the 2nd DVR is used.
DM, all of the publicly traded cable/satellite providers report subscriber data. And a variety of sources post statistics/estimates based on research. Google is your friend if you feel like doing the work.
~10% of the TV homes didn’t transition to cable, or satellite as a result of the transition according to Nielsen, and the percentage of OTA only homes really didn’t decrease that much pre/post transition.
It wasn’t nothing, but I’m not interested enough to look it up — plus, there’s no doubt in my mind that however large or small the gains to cable/satellite due to digital transition, they certainly would mask any cord cutting.
Is it just me, or does this survery include nothing on one person wanting to watch two shows on at the same time. It has a question dedicated to if another person in the household wants to watch a different program, but not if YOU wanted to watch a different program.
Robert,
I thought I had posted something earlier but I currently do not see it. I am hoping that you didn’t decide to remove it because it was critical of your response to me.
Anyway, I took a look at Comcast’s 2009 4Q results and I see a problem with the way that statistics are presented for video subscribers. The problem is also universal throughout the cable industry, since they all use basically the same statistical model for subscriber data.
Comcast lost basic video customers but gained digital video customers. It is safe to assume that the loss of basic video subscribers is a loss of video subscribers in general. However, an assumption cannot be made that the digital video subscriber gains should count as an overall video subscriber gain.
For example, a customer could have been a basic video subscriber and upgraded to the digital video tier. This would count as a digital video subscriber gain, but it would not be considered to be an overall general video subscriber gain since that customer was already a video customer before, just at a lower tier of service. Simply upgrading or downgrading service doesn’t constitute a change in subscriber status, in regards to the argument of cord cutting that is being discussed here.
Once again, I ask that some sort of citation be made about the facts that Bill mentioned in his post.
DM,
I installed some new spam software this afternoon, but I’m not sure what role that played (if that software impacted you, you wouldn’t be able to get to the site at all). The message above was in our spam filter, though I am not sure why. I have freed it. We have had a ton of spam recently and its possible I deleted your message and several others since at one point there were 347 messages in our spam bin and rather than be meticulous, I took the path of least resistance and deleted them all and installed additional software. If your message was nuked it wasn’t personal.
I did this post, not Bill, if you’re referring to a comment he made, that’s fine with me. You can ignore the “Digital Video” line on Comcast’s report, it is included in the primary Video line (Comcast had 23.6 million cable TV customers at the end of 2009, not 23.6 PLUS whatever the Digital line was). They had net losses of over 600,000 video subscribers for the year, but the problem is the analysis is complex since DTV, Dish, AT&T & Verizon FiOs all grew (DirectTV Q4 earnings announcement still a couple of weeks off though).
I’ll give you a citation from Nielsen. They had total cable/satellite/FiOs, etc at 102.62 million homes in January 2009 and 103.97 million in December 2009. It was 101.66 million at the beginning of 2008.
DM, here’s a citation that contains lots of numbers, but confirms that overall TV subscription rates are not falling, but for individual providers they may be.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/12/09/surprise-dish-grows-faster-than-directv-fios-and-u-verse-in-latest-quarter/35812
Ah, I was wondering what was eating messages. Maybe it will help if I’ll use a working email address
I hope Cable cords do get Cut. I’m much happier with OTA and Hulu. Although i do have Sirius radio for cable news
I watch Heroes live that and fox news that’s it