Live Internet Television

If you put video content online, it’s interesting to look at how viewers vary from site to site. Male vs. female, skewing younger vs. skewing older, each video sharing site has a unique  audience. Read about the Top video sites at the Smart Market blog and Adobe’s Layers Magazine. I think this info is just as important to content creators as it is to advertisers.

Pew Internet Research

Back in September, we took a reader poll of who we think watches the most online video, by age. Voters favored  “People & young parents 25-34″ over other age ranges. Before we dig into that answer, let’s recognize the fact that video watching online is growing rapidly among all age ranges. Pew Internet breaks it down:

9 in 10 internet users ages 18-29 use video sharing sites. 36% of young adult internet users watched video on these sites.

Online adults ages 30-49 also showed big gains over the past year; 67% now use video sharing sites.

Among internet users ages 50-64, 41% now say they watch video on sites like YouTube

27% of wired seniors ages 65 and older now access video on these sites

Regarding who watches the most online video, a teaser from Nielsenwire:

People have a hard time believing 60% of online video viewers are over the age of 35. Initially, it is a bit shocking: we expect that new media like online video would be more heavily composed of younger people. But the truth of the matter is that video has already reached popularity to the point that the video universe, in broad terms, looks much like the overall Internet audience.

Cutting to the chase…

Here’s how you voted on the categories being the largest (still more apologies for my attempt a dry wit with “fogies”):

It looks like we skewed young by a few years, and underestimated older viewers. Here’s what recent research indicates is the breakdown by age for online video watching:

Coming across these candies at Archie McPhee ( a really good reason to live in Seattle) reminded me of the strangely watchable show Fear Factor (June 11, 2001 – September 12, 2006). Turns out “fear factor” has another meaning that’s a little too relevant to too many of us today:

The fear factor in occupational terminology refers to the increased per-worker productivity resulting from the threat of impending layoffs. The resultant productivity boost is almost always temporary, since health-related reasons dictate that workers cannot maintain this level of increased output. Some economists have proposed that the economic growth during the early 2000s jobless recovery is a result of this phenomenon.

I prefer to reminisce about the show. I didn’t respect it, but I sure enjoyed quite a few episodes back in the day.

When I think of people flooding the Internet with the desire to watch TV online, I don’t think of Spongebob in particular, dear as he is to my heart. But the facts say otherwise (see chart below).

The facts also say that 9 of the Top Ten online TV sites have yet to break 4% marketshare — most are at 1 & some change. There’s a lot of online TV watching to come, and it won’t be on individual broadcast or cable network sites. It will be aggregated for ease-of-access, to feel “more like TV.” Nothing online feels like true TV yet, but it’s coming.

Top 10 Network & Cable TV Show Websites, Week Ending 07-04-09