• June 28, 2007

A new report from Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD Group says that while digital video has reached the mainstream, online services allowing people to pay to download video content have only caught on with a small percentage of consumers.

According to NPD 's "Digital Video in America" report, in 2006 seven in 10 Internet-enabled households in the U.S. had digital video files saved on their home PCs.

The study found that more than three-quarters of all video purchased was television content. One-third of the purchased TV programs were also available for free on TV network Web sites.

Digital video download rates now stand about where the music market did three years ago, per NPD but fewer than 2 percent of Internet households purchased digital video content in the first quarter of 2007.

The video files on PCs in the U.S. cover a broad range of content types. Adult content (pornography) was found on the PCs of nearly one-third of all U.S. households (39%). By comparison, movie and television content was saved by just 19% and 18% (respectively) of U.S. households.

--Karl Greenberg