Downloading TV shows from the Internet is a relatively new activity for US Internet users, but a recent report from Ipsos Insight indicates that 11 million Americans over the age of 12 did so in the month of June.
Streamed music videos are the most popular category of online video among US Internet users, with Ipsos estimating that 41 million US Internet users watched and listened to music this way in June. This compares with only seven million who downloaded full-length movies.
A comparison between June 2005 and June 2006 reveals that online video consumption on the whole has grown only marginally for most content categories. The downloading and viewing of TV shows has grown the quickest, and this has no doubt been the result of the greater amounts of content that has become available on Apple's iTunes site as well as others.
Internet users ages 18 to 24 are the most voracious downloaders of TV shows, with 9% of this age group downloading a TV show in the month of June, compared with only 5% for 25-to-34-year-olds.
It appears that the iTunes business model works with video content such as TV shows as well as it has with music. It is by far the most popular destination for music and video downloading with Yahoo! coming a distant second, according to data published in June by BIGresearch.
With greater amounts of video being consumed online, the opportunities for online video advertising are growing fast. See eMarketer's Online Video Advertising report for more information. You can also sign up to be notified when the new Online Video and Other Rich Media report is published in October.