• by Tanya Gazdik , December 6, 2007

The downloading and viewing of broadband video among adult high-speed Internet users continues to rise, according to a new report from Horowitz Associates.

About 61% of high-speed Internet users download online video content at least once a week and 86% do so on a monthly basis, compared to 45% and 71%, respectively, in the 2006 study. News and user-generated, non-professional content are the most often viewed genres, followed by movie previews/trailers, music videos, and previews/segments of TV shows.

Reported weekly viewing of full episodes of television shows doubled from last year, with 16% of Internet users watching TV online on a weekly basis, according to the Larchmont, New York-based Horowitz in the just-released report: Broadband Content and Services 2007.

NBC and ABC are the networks that Internet users mention the most frequently for online TV content (unaided), with "Grey's Anatomy" being the most often mentioned TV program viewed online (unaided).

While consumption of broadband video has grown, the study shows that television is still the preferred platform for traditional TV content. About 70% of Internet users who watch TV online say do so because they missed the episode on TV. About 18% of these respondents say they watch TV shows online to watch them a second time (after having watched them on TV), or that they watch TV shows online just when they happen to find them or when someone else tells them about them (20%). Conversely, 13% of Internet users who watch TV shows online say they watch them directly online, and not on regular TV.

The viewing of video content on video-enabled handheld devices is on the rise. About 27% of Internet users have a cell, iPod/MP3 player, or PDA with video capability, and an additional 23% do not have this capability but are interested in getting it.

Among those with video-enabled handheld devices, about 35% watch video on their devices at least weekly and 62% do so at least monthly, translating to 18% of Internet users overall who watch video content on a handheld device at least monthly. This figure is up from 8% just one year ago.

"More and better broadband content, particularly entertainment content in video form, is bringing more consumers to the platform, either on their computers or on their handheld devices," said Howard Horowitz, President of Horowitz Associates, Inc. "This, in turn, creates an even greater demand for broadband video." The data suggests that broadband video is not cannibalistic to linear video, but rather, an enhancement to the consumers' "traditional" TV experience, he said.