Studios: Make Your Content Available Everywhere

Implications: The Internet may soon become US consumers’ primary entertainment source. The consumer is ultimately looking for longer professionally produced content for their online and mobile experience.

Analysis: The Internet may soon become US consumers’ primary entertainment source. For consumers age 18 to 34, TV usage is decreasing while cell phone and PC use is on the increase. In a recent study 19% of all demographic respondents said they spend six or more hours each day on personal internet usage. Only 8% reported to spending that much time on TV. One to four hours of TV Usage was reported by 66% compared to 60% for the Internet.

Furthermore, consumers are divided over their preferences for advertising supported content compared to subscription based content without advertising. About 30% prefer free/ad-based content while 20% are willing to pay for an ad free, HBO style, subscription model.

For online video content the most popular sites are still user generated content sites such as You Tube, where 39% say they most frequent. For internet video offers, 33% go to the professional content of TV Network sites such as NBC or CBS, 32% go to search engines such as Google, MSN or Yahoo! and 28% go to social-networks such as MySpace and Facebook.

Interestingly, another recent study, exclusively executed with teenagers, asked what do you want most on your mobile phone? First, was full length hit movies, second was popular TV series… User Generated Content ranked in at sixth. Also, the number of video streams for 2007 is expected to equal the number of video steams of 2006 - however, the streaming durations are expected to be 2 to 3 times longer on average…The consumer is looking for longer professionally produced content from their online and mobile experience. A crucial lesson for the studios is: make your content available everywhere.