They’re watching! (But are they seeing you?)

Watching TV is about as American as apple pie. And now, research suggests this most American of all past times (sorry baseball) is more popular than ever, with Nielson reporting that the average American watched 127 hours of television in May alone.

Fortunately, we’re not only watching more TV, we’re also watching more streaming video.

While viewership of online streaming video is a scant 2 hours 19 minutes compared to television, it adds up to 7.5 billion streams and 16.4 billion minutes.

Maybe New Media’s not so ‘new’ after all…

From the New York Times:

The average American spent 127 hours of time with TV in May, up from 121 hours in May 2007; and 26 hours on the Internet, up from 24 hours last year. More than 282 million people watch television in a given month and nearly 162 million use the Internet.

Perhaps most important, the data reaffirms that online video viewing is no longer a novelty. Two-thirds of Internet users in the United States, 119 million people, watched video in May.

For BtoB this is a bellwether of things to come. In the past, video was never much of an option because it would have meant spending a lot of money to reach the handful of people who actual would purchase a BtoB product or service. Video online changes all that. And this report tells us that most people online are used to watching video…and the like it!

Whether it’s podcasts, promotional videos, or demonstrations, using video could be the fast and effective means of bringing in business.

Read the full New York Times article here: Link

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