Commentary

Survey of Women's Online Viewing Habits Shows a Streak of Practicality

A new study from the Total Beauty Media Group says that most women it surveyed most commonly use desktop computers to watch online videos, and that they mostly watch in the late afternoon or evening.

It also says women may be more reluctant to watch video on a smartphone because—duh—watching video on a bigger screen is just more enjoyable. The picture is bigger.

Women who are earning $25,000 or less a year also are less likely to watch online video on their cells because it quickly becomes an expensive proposition.

There seems something utterly and refreshingly practical, and even frugal, found in these results of an online survey of 610 women, which seems more to be a sliver of a specific female video viewing universe rather than a large statistically accurate survey of all female online video viewers.

Nonetheless, this survey reports that 87% of the women it surveyed watch video online, and that millennials invest an impressive half hour or more a day; altogether, among the women who like to watch (to coin a demo group!) 47% watch ten minutes or less a day, and 21% watch videos lasting from 10 to 30 minutes.

Among the reasons many women like a bigger screen, too, is that some of them spend some of the time looking at cooking or beauty videos, and it’s just more practical to use a larger screen size in those applications.

Total Beauty operates properties that include TotalBeauty, com,  BeautyRiot.com, LimeLife.com and ModernMan.com, and claims 12 million unique visits a month. It has an obvious stake in online video because it produces it and also shows user-generated video on its sites.   

When do women watch? Total Beauty says the majority of women watch in the afternoon of evening. Nearly half of the millennial women (age 25-34) watch video from 5 to 10 p.m. every day, or roughly the contours of prime time.  Nearly 30% of young boomers (age 25-54) watch in the morning but only 9% of younger women do. That might mean something to Websites that aim to attract cosmetic-conscious younger women.

About 60% of millennials subscribe to YouTube channels; “only” 40% of young boomers do.  Less than a third pay for video,  but 65% of millennials have paid for video content of some sort. Overall, more will pay for a movie (40% do that) than TV (17%). Over 80% find video pre-roll annoying, and most would rather give away demographic information or take a survey to avoid random messaging.  

In short, this survey seems to say that women--at least these ones-- approach online video from a value-oriented point of view, an aspect of online video that doesn’t seem to get much attention.

 

 

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