Report: Prime Time TV Viewers Moving Online

Written by Ryan Lawler

Wednesday, July 30. 2008 at 03:55 PM EDT Post a comment

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Young, rich, white, and well educated video viewers are increasingly migrating from watching episodic video content on their TVs to watching it on their PCs. That's the gist of a new report from Integrated Media Measurement Inc., which posits a shift in the way some users are consuming long-form video.

IMMI reports that about 20 percent of all traditional television content is viewed online, which is not really news. But what is interesting is how users are viewing that content. The IMMI report shows that for the first time, a substantial number of viewers are turning to the Internet as a replacement for TV viewing.

According to IMMI, 50 percent of online viewers classified their online video watching as a "TV replacement," with 31.3 percent classifying online video watching as "catch-up viewing," and the other 18.7 percent saying they watched long-form video online as "fill-in viewing."

"The notion that people are watching mainstream TV on a computer is happening much faster than anyone thought it was," says IMMI CEO Tom Zito. "This is further evidence that content companies need to find new ways to distribute and monetize their content."

Source: IMMI

Who are these rogue online video viewers? According to the IMMI report, they are young, rich, and well educated. In other words, just the type of consumers that advertisers would want to target.

"There are new opportunities for how you wrap advertising around content," Zito says. "Advertisers need to think long and hard about finding new ways to make this attractive to consumers of content and find better ways to present advertising on the computer."

In the company's survey, IMMI compared online viewers and network viewers by age and found that viewers aged 25-44 were more likely to watch episodic content online than on TV. Twenty-five to 34-year-olds made up 29.9 percent of online video viewers, and 35 to 44-year-olds made up 28.5 percent of online video watchers. That compares to making up 20.7 percent and 24.9 percent of the TV audience, respectively.

The 13-24 demographic, meanwhile, lagged in online video viewership. Although teens and college students are supposed to be on the cutting edge of Internet technology, that hasn't translated to online video viewing. Thirteen to 24-year-olds made up 19.1 percent of online viewers, compared to 29.1 percent of traditional TV watchers.

Source: IMMI

According to IMMI, online video viewers are also well off. According to the report, respondents who earn $40,000 a year or less were 75 percent more likely to watch a network show live on TV than online. Those that make more than $80,000 a year, meanwhile, were 56 percent more likely to watch a show online than on their totally expensive 62-inch flat-screen TVs.

Source: IMMI

Finally, the report finds that online viewers tend to be well educated, with 56.8 percent of online viewers having completed four years of college or more. Compare that to high school graduates, who make up 21.6 percent of the total live TV viewership, but only 12.4 percent of online viewership, or those who didn't graduate high school, who make up just 1.3 percent of online viewership.

Source: IMMI