The great majority of video content consumed online has been short clips of less than 120 seconds – with roller-skating cats onYouTube springing to mind.
But new research in the US in showing how video consumption patterns online are rapidly changing, enabled by high speed broadband connections and greater server capacity which allow full screen viewing of far longer video clips.
This long form video content is currently dominated by the TV networks whose online catch up services are growing almost exponentially. By some estimates in the US, one in four web customers now uses Hulu, an online home for NBS and Fox shows, every month. “Dancing With the Stars,” the popular ABC reality show, draws almost two million viewers on ABC.com according to Nielsen.
But in addition, independent US production companies are now creating 10- and 20-minute shows for the internet and writing story lines for their characters — essentially acting more like television producers, while operating outside the boundaries of a network schedule.
12 months ago all but one of the top 25 shows on Blip.tv (the video on demand service) were under five minutes. Now, the average video hosted by Blip is 14 minutes. The longest video uploaded in May was 133 minutes long, equivalent to a feature-length film.
This trend towards longer-form content is reflected in YouTube’s decision to add a “Shows” tab to its pages, directing users to long-form TV episodes and movies.
Online video viewing is now totally mainstream in the US. About 150 million web users in the United States watch about 14.5 billion videos a month, according to the measurement firm comScore, an average of 97 videos per viewer with an average video duration which has crept up to 3.4 minutes in March.
Jon Gibs, a vice president for media analytics for Nielsen, said online video is at a pivotal point. “Historically it has been very much a clip-based experience online,” he said. “We believe we are moving into a transition period where more of that viewership is going toward long-form video.”
Constraints to date in the US have been broadband speed and server space. These constraints still remain to a large degree in the UK, with average broadband speeds still a measly 3.6 Mb/sec. Nevertheless the huge success of iPlayer has brought broadband speed front of mind for many UK web users, which is stimulating the ISPs into providing faster broadband services.
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