Top 10 Takeaways from the State of the US Online Video Market

I attended a Renaissance:SF Event last night to hear the “State of the US Online Video Market”presentation at a SF Next-Generation film studio – Dimension7.   Renaissance:SF is a networking salon group that is dedicated to revitalizing the art/film industry here in San Francisco. Their guest speaker was Kal Deutsch of CineGoGo  which helps monetize movie events for non-profit organizations. As the On-line video momentum starts to shift because of the tablet devices like the iPad, film makers need to embrace the notion of Transmedia – the ability to tell your story across multiple media platforms. We summarized the top 10 takeaways from the Kal’s presentation below.

Top 10 Key Event Takeaways

1. Young Adults Watch More Video on the Internet – 18-24 age group the largest at over 7 hours of viewing per month.
2. Teens Adapt to Watching Videos on Mobile Devices –  12-17 Age Group is the largest at over 8 hours of viewing per month.
3. Multitasking Between Devices – Many people may be Media “surfing” which can skew the data.
4. Google Dominant in On-line Video Views – Google(YouTube) dominates the unique viewers per month at 149M viewers per month. VEVO is a distant 2nd at 63M viewers per month.
5. Apple iTunes Store On Top – Apple continues to dominate  with 65% of total revenue in the 1st half of 2011.
6. iPad Enables Viewability of Print and Video Media – iPad user access digital print and videos three times(3X) more frequently due to larger viewing screen.
7. iPad Users Like TV – iPad Users watch TV 50% more than other tablets or smartphones.
8. Online Video Viewers like Short Content – Viewers spent an average of viewing 211 videos per month at an average of 16hrs per month. Approximately 5 min spent per video on average.
9. Free Content is King – Only 4% of audience pays for Online content.
10. Online Consumers Not Yet Accepting the Same Quantity of Advertising as on TV – Online Ads are only 1.9% of the time watched versus 25% of time watched on television.

As the US market slowly shifts more to online video, Asia will be adopting to Online Video at a faster rate because of higher adoption of mobile technology. The key will be the monetization model of the content deliverer by either by advertisements or subscription offsetting the content cost. Content re-used in different formats will help drive content cost lower. The user culture of free content will have a lot to say about which model gets more adoption. Some questions remain like will the US fully adopt using the Internet exclusively for video content. It will be exciting to see how this plays out.