3.1 Billion Hours Watched on VOD in 2009

PORTLAND: Digital media-measurement and research firm Rentrak has published its latest State of VOD report, where it indicates that viewers spent more than 3.1 billion hours watching on-demand content last year.

In an average month, 45 percent of enabled set-top boxes are using VOD, Rentrak says, and active VOD users ordered an average of 16.4 free titles per month, 8.7 subscription programs and 2 movies on-demand. In the year, 5.1 billion free on-demand orders were placed, with 1.6 billion hours spent watching free on-demand content. SVOD content, meanwhile, had 1.6 billion transactions and more than 1.1 billion hours of usage time. Transactional VOD clocked up 208 million orders, delivering $963 million in gross revenues.

Rentrak’s OnDemand Essentials service tracks 70 million set-top-boxes across 33 operators and for more than 100 content providers.