Report: 81 Million People in the U.S. Watch Broadband Video

ALEXANDRIA/NEW YORK, July
17: A new study from The Nielsen Company for the Cable & Telecommunications
Association for Marketing (CTAM) estimates that 81 million people in the U.S.
watch broadband video at home or at work, up 16 percent from the 70 million
recorded in September 2006.

The figure marks a
63-percent penetration of the 129 million people who access the Internet over
broadband in the U.S.

The reports notes that
traditional home television ratings have been minimally affected, if at all, by
broadband viewing. Online watching is not considered as a substitute for TV
viewing, the report says. Moreover, 33 percent of respondents said that
watching video online increased their TV viewing time; 13 percent indicated
that it decreased the time they spent in front of the TV.

The report also found that
widespread consumer use of broadband video seems to be contingent on that content
becoming more easily accessible via home television sets.

ABC.com was the leader
among all network websites, and Yahoo! Movies was the leader in the movies
category.

"The growing
popularity of broadband video programming makes it vital to better understand
its true impact on the viewership of and engagement with television," said
CTAM President and CEO Char Beales. "This research provides an
unprecedented look at how consumers are making television viewing decisions as
well as which consumers are more likely to embrace broadband content in the
future."

"Linking television
viewing data with Internet usage behavior goes far beyond what traditional
survey-based research methods can offer to help content providers best manage
the growth of television and broadband video platforms," added Paul
Donato, the chief research officer of The Nielsen Company. "The fusion of
these discrete Nielsen data sets into a single, unified analysis provides the
most complete benchmark of broadband content viewing behavior to date."