• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, October 20, 2008

A full 65% of online media sites now use video, according to a new Web Influencers Internet Media Tour Survey conducted by D S Simon Productions. What's more, 77% of online media sites project the use of video to increase over the next year.

The study gathered responses from some 200 "Web influencers" from top media outlets such as USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, network affiliate TV stations in the top 10 media markets, WINS-AM Radio in New York, and top media Web sites as well as one-person "Mommy-blogging" sites.

About 45% of TV stations use outside video for their Web sites, while two-thirds--67%--of radio stations, newspapers, magazines and bloggers use outside video on their Web sites.

"Web Influencers are now the mainstream media," said Douglas Simon, president and CEO of D S Simon Productions. "So we sought to find differences in the use of video among sites affiliated with TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines, as well as blogs. We need to understand the content needs of these Web Influencers if we hope to communicate successfully in the online world."

Not surprisingly, TV stations were most likely to use video, at 79%. Web sites and bloggers were second at 70%. More than half of all newspapers and magazines are using video on their sites.

"Web Media" is the most open to using outside video, according to the study, while radio stations were next, followed by print outlets and television stations.

Notably, the study found that the politicization of third-party video on television has carried over to station Web sites, "where they overwhelmingly are interested in using B-Roll compared to other content."

The strongest interest in outside video content was from "Web media."