Tablet Users Watch 30% More Video

Where it comes to online video consumption, device type matters. And it looks like tablets are shaping viewer behavior in new ways. Tablet users averaged nearly 30 percent more viewing time per play than those who watched on desktops, for instance, and they completed videos at double the desktop rate, according to data from Ooyala. 

Viewer engagement was generally higher on mobile devices than on desktops. Mobile viewers completed 75 percent of a long-form video at a rate of 20 percent, compared to 18 percent for desktops. As a general rule, device type heavily influences viewer engagement. In the third quarter of 2011, tablet viewers were the most engaged, while desktop and laptop viewers were relatively less engaged.

For each desktop viewer who completed a video, for instance, more than two viewers did the same while watching on a tablet. Across all plays, the video completion rate for mobile devices was slightly higher than that for connected TV devices and game consoles, as well.

In fact, the latest data suggests  viewers are turning to their tablets, mobile devices and especially their
connected TV devices and game consoles to watch medium- and long-form videos. You might think mobile users would watch shorter clips, while desktop PC users watch more long-form programming. That doesn't seem to be the case. 


Desktops or laptops are far more likely to be used to watch short clips, the Ooyala data suggests.  Videos shorter than three minutes, for instance, accounted for more than half (52 percent) of the hours of content viewed on desktops.


That same measure is 42 percent for mobile devices, 29 percent for tablets and just six percent for
connected TV devices and game consoles. 


By contrast, longer-form videos represent a bigger share of the hours played on non-desktop devices. Videos 10 minutes or longer accounted for 30 percent of the hours watched on mobile devices, 42 percent on tablets and nearly 75 percent on connected TV devices and game consoles, Ooyala reports. VideoMind Video Index

What Role for Mobile Video?

According to Yankee Group researchers, 34 percent of respondents who watch video on their mobile phone at least once a week say they watch user-generated videos. 


That isn't to say they wouldn't watch professionally-produced video as well, but those options are not generally easily available. 


These videos from sites like YouTube or Facebook are by far the most popular content. YouTube just recently announced it is receiving 200 million mobile views of its videos daily, a 300 percent increase from last year. The next most popular, TV show clips, are cited by just 20 percent of respondents. 


So how big a business could mobile video, in the form of a channel for the sorts of programs people now watch on cable, telco or satellite systems, get to be? Content providers ultimately will have to decide how much to support streamed or multicast video for mobile consumption. 


The current hope is that revenue from the existing linear business (cable, satellite and telco TV) will continue to grow steadily, while incremental and significant new revenues can be earned from over-the-top delivery as well. Whether consumers will accept that state of affairs is a growing issue. 


The whole assumption behind "TV Everywhere" efforts is that consumers get mobile access as part of their fixed-network video service. But if subscription costs keep rising four to seven percent a year, there is just some point at which consumers will be unable to afford the fixed-network product, much less pay more for mobile access.


The probable future disruption of the video business might not be caused so much by the availability of new delivery channels and devices as by a consumer revolt over high prices. So how could mobile video work in a future environment where willingness to pay hits a wall?


Fundamentally, providers would have to adjust either the "value" part of the equation or the "price" part, or both. If consumers can get "what they really want," while paying no more than what they already pay, we could see a significant shift to "on demand only" delivery modes. 


Mobile might then become a significant channel for subscribers with high needs to watch professionally-created programming, including sports and news, where they are. Those are the two "real time" genres with an "event" character. Movies can be watched on a highly time-shifted basis. Sports and news really are better when consumed "live and in real time."


Mobile is arguably the best platform for that, in terms of immediacy, if not "screen size" parts of the experience. 




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Dish Will Launch Mobile Video Service?

Dish Network will use the S-band wireless spectrum it acquired via its $2.775 billion purchases of DBSD North America and TerreStar Networks to push a mobile video strategy to complement its wired video delivery service, according to Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen. Dish's Ergen: Spectrum will enable mobile video play

"So the way I look at it is, we believe that the wireless business is a place where, if we're in the video business, we need to be more than fixed, we need to be a mobile video as well," Ergen said. 


Though it also remains possible that Dish Network might look at other wireless services as well, some of that thinking might hinge, in part, on what happens with the AT&T bid to buy T-Mobile USA. 


If approved, it is expected there will be required divestitures, and that could be something Dish Network might be able to take advantage of. If the merger is not approved, there are other possible opportunities that could arise. Some of those possibilities could include the ability for Dish Network to rather quickly acquire market share in the mobile broadband and voice business, for example.


Though that might not have seemed so logical in the past, much is changing in the consumer services business. Cable TV operators, for example, increasingly are talking about broadband access as the core service, with a corresponding lessening of emphasis on video services. 


Ergen still believes there is an opportunity for stand-alone video services, as cable operators increasingly seem to be embracing the value of a "lead with broadband access" strategy.


Having said that, Ergen said the other macro trend is that people continue to use more data. And the key point is that such data could be video, could be voice, could be lots of other things. 


"So I think that strategically, we believe we have to be in something other than a standalone video business as a company, and we are in the transition of being able to do that," said Ergen.  "hat's going to take some time and that is unclear where that is going to be a smart business decision or not."


That's a rather more candid assessment than many CEOs might make, but Ergen is a straight shooter. The larger issue is that the traditional telecom and video entertainment businesses are unstable in a new way. Broadband is becoming the lead offer for cable operators as they continue to lose market share to telcos and satellite, while wireless now is the lead offer for telcos. 


Even "bundles," which have driven growth for more than a decade, though still important, are losing some marketing emphasis in favor of concentration on the lead offers. For Dish Network, a new lead offer might emerge in the future. 

Mobile Video Revenue: Close to $25 Billion by 2014

Analysts at the Yankee Group estimate mobile video revenues will approach $25 billion globally by about 2014.

That forecast assumes significant mobile user take rates for various types of for-fee video, both subscription and single purchase.

Mobile Video Consumption Up 47%

While the number of people watching videos on their mobile phones remains relatively small compared to TV, they are increasingly using the devices to that end. On a year-to-year basis, the number of people watching mobile video increased more than 43 percent, while the amount of time spent doing so was up almost seven percent, according to Nielsen.

 read more here

Overall Usage Number of Users 13+ (in 000s) – Monthly Reach
	Q2 2010	Q1 2010	Q2 2009	% Diff Yr to Yr
Using a Mobile Phone ^	229,375	229,495	220,527	+3.99%
Mobile Subscribers Watching Video on a Mobile Phone ^	21,957	20,284	15,267	+43.82%
Source: The Nielsen Company As of Q2 2010, 22 million people watched video on a mobile device

300% Increase in Mobile YouTube Viewing in 2010

YouTube now exceeds 200 million views a day on mobile, a 300-percent increase in 2010.

YouTube Blog

Mobile Video Hiccups Once Second Out of Every Six

Despite the protestations of network neutrality advocates, there's a very good reason why real-time services ranging from voice to conferencing to entertainment video actually require some form of optimization and even packet prioritization.

Recent data collected in mid-year 2010 by Bytemobile from networks operated by the likes of AT&T, China Mobile, China Telecom, KDDI, KPN, O2, Orange, Orascom, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia Mobile, Telefónica, TeliaSonera and Vodafone show that every minute of mobile video consumed by end users includes about 10 seconds of stalling.

That's 17 percent of every minute of video, or a stall every six seconds. That is hugely disruptive of viewing experience and will not be acceptable once users become accustomed to using video content. It will be completely unacceptable once users start paying for video content services.

The problems currently are worse about 10 p.m. local time, and best at 5:30 a.m,, says Bytemobile. Expecting such congestion and disruption, most mobile users opt to watch videos at lower-quality settings to improve their media experience. That probably isn't what content owners or their business partners prefer, to say nothing of mobile service providers who will inevitably be tarnished by that sort of performance.

Nor does "more bandwidth" solve such problems. Bytemobile data shows that stalling occurs on even the fastest of networks and a quality user experience requires optimization of video content. In other words, packet prioritization and, or, other measures to keep latency and jitter performance optimal.

That said, as network bandwidth decreases, video stalling dramatically increases.

Consumption of high-definition video is nearly non-existent on wireless networks, at 0.07 percent of video-specific traffic volume.

Moreover, video traffic directly impacts bandwidth availability on wireless networks all over the world.

read more here

Mobile Video: "Developing" Regions Use More Than North Americans

North Americans are less than half as likely as the global average to watch online video using a mobile device, according to a new study from The Nielsen Company. The somewhat-surprising finding suggests that mobile video services might be more important to users in many parts of the world other than North America or Europe.

As a region, North America only scores 45 on the Index of Mobile Video Usage (Past 30 Days).

With a score of 100 representing the global average, this means North Americans are 55 percent less likely to watch mobile video than international online consumers as a whole.

nielsen-video-mobile-nation-august-2010

Is Video the Killer App for 4G?

One can argue that access to  web applications has turned out to be the "killer app" for 3G.

One might also speculate that video might be the killer app for 4G.

Click the image for a larger view that shows the various channels consumers now use for video.

New Motorola Tablet PC Might Support Verizon Multichannel Video

Motorola reportedly is developing a tablet device in conjunction with Verizon Wireless that will allow users to watch television on it, including the sort of multichannel video fare Verizon fixed network customers can watch, the Financial Times reports.

The device, which will have a 10-inch screen and operate on Google’s Android software, could launch as early as this autumn in the U.S. market. The Financial Times report suggests the video features will "tie closely to Verizon’s FiOS digital pay-television service."

As typically is the case for such innovations in the video business, content rights discussions will be key. Perhaps the most-logical offering is a "TV Everywhere" service similar to what U.S. cable operators are developing, where a Verizon FiOS TV service subscriber could watch the same content on devices powered by the Verizon Wireless network, either within the Verizon wired network geographical footprint or perhaps within the Verizon Wireles footprint, which exceeds the fixed network footprint substantially.

What remains unclear is whether Verizon Wireless can rework rights agreements enough to be able to offer the equivalent of its FiOS services over the Verizon Wireless network to customers who do not live within the fixed network footprint. That of course would tend to conflict with other distribution agreements programmers have with satellite and other terrestrial providers.

Technology really isn't the issue here: content rights arrangements and compensation are the key issues.

more here

Mobile Video Revenue to Grow 23% Annually

The mobile video market is set for rapid expansion in the next few years, with revenues expected to roughly triple between 2009 and 2014, rising from $436 million to $1.34 billion, according to eMarketer.

Mobile video revenues, including direct downloads, subscriptions and ad-supported video, are expected to reach $548 million in 2010 as the population of mobile video viewers in the US grows to 23.9 million, the firm reports.

Of these three primary revenue streams for mobile video, the ad-supported component will be the fastest growing. Ad-supported mobile video revenues will post a 60 percent compound annual growth rate between 2009 and 2014.

The number of mobile video viewers who watch at least one item, at least once per month, will continue growing in the double digits for a compound annual growth rate of 22.8 percent from 2009 through 2014, eMarketer says.

51% Mobile Video Growth Since 2009

Nielsen's latest "Three Screen Report" shows 51 percent growth of video watching on mobile phones, with a perhaps-surprising skew of demographics.

About 55 percent of the mobile video audience is aged 25 to 49. Also, the number of people with multi-tasking behavior, where users "watch" TV while using their PCs, was down in March 2010, though the length of time spent was up about 10 percent for people who did multi-task.

More than half of U.S. TV households now have a high-definition television and receive high-definition signals, while HDTV penetration grew 189 percent between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2010.

More than a third of homes have a digital video recorder, up 51percent over the last two years.

About 64 percent of U.S. homes now use broadband Internet access while nearly a quarter of households (up 38%
year-over-year) have smartphones. The former trend means more uses can stream or download Internet video, while the latter trend means more place-shifting behavior, as well as some amount of incremental video consumption.

The amount of time spent watching television is still increasing. U.S. viewers watched two more hours of
TV per month in the first quarter of 2010 than in the first quarter of  2009.

The average time spent simultaneously using TV and Internet in the home also grew 9.8 percent, to 3 hours and 41 minutes per month, though the number of people doing so declined.

The number of people who are timeshifting has grown 18 percent since last year to 94 million, with the
average user now timeshifting 9 hours and 36 minutes per month.

The mobile video audience grew 51.2 percnet  year over year, surpassing 20 million users for the first time.

Beyond the TV, technology is helping drive video use on the “second” and “third” screens. The proliferation of broadband access is bolstering online video, creating an alternative mass outlet for distributing television content and “timeshifting” long-form TV.

Similarly, the increased popularity of smartphones has created yet another opportunity for incremental viewing, and Nielsen logically expects smartphone video viewing to keep growing. On top of that are new devices such as tablet PCs that also are expected to increase the amount of mobile video viewing.

Video Snacking, Not Feasting, is One Impact of New AT&T Tariffs

AT&T's latest realignment of its smartphone wireless data plans based on how much bandwidth they use is hard to characterize in a uniform sense. Heavy users won't like it, but the plans reflect more realistically the value they derive from the network.

Lighter users might find they actually can save money by switching plans. Lots of non-users who believe they are likely to be light users will benefit. Moderate users will have to think about whether to keep their unlimited $30 plans or switch to the $25 plan.

The clearest impact will be on new users signing up starting June 7, as the difference between the unlimited plan and the 2-Gbyte plan will mean users will likely wind up snacking on video rather than feasting. That doesn't mean actual behavior even under the old plan would have been much different. Users likely were mostly snacking, to begin with.

It's just that the 2-Gbyte cap will encourage people to watch their video consumption more closely.

And that likely is modestly bad news for the mobile video industry, to the extent that revenues are based on subscriptions or advertising. In the first case it will be harder to sell a recurring subscription service when users are not sure what it will cost to use the service, in terms of bandwidth charges.

In the latter case people will be watching less video, therefore being exposed to fewer ads, and resulting in less activity that can be monetized.

Even AT&T's high-end, $25 monthly plan, including 2 GB of bandwidth, can be used up in less than a day of watching video. And while AT&T's $10 per GByte overage charges are much more reasonable than previous industry charges, they're still unlikely to be popular.

A two-hour movie, even compressed, could use upwards of 500 MBytes of data. that could mean variable and unexpected charges, and consumers hate that.

 link

Orange UK Study: Women Send More Pictures; Men Watch More Video

Women send more multimedia messaging service (pictures) messages than men, as much as 48 percent more than men in some age groups, says Orange UK.

But 71 percent of all mobile TV clips have been purchased by men, Orange UK says.  Likewise,
75 percent of all mobile videos have been purchased by men.

Also, some 64 percent of customers using Orange social networking sites were men and 36 percent were women.

On average, iPhone customers use 165 megabytes of data per month. This compares to an average of 115 megabytes of data for other smartphone customers, says Orange UK.

Of these data points, the one which strikes me as being most important is the statistic about data consumption. Where a fixed broadband connection might represent scores of gigabytes worth of usage each month, a mobile broadband connection might represent perhaps a gigabyte or two.

The fact that iPhone users average about 165 megabytes is interesting in that it suggests smartphone devices, though far more numerous than PC dongles, represent an order of magnitude less bandwidth demand on the mobile networks than PC devices.

That could have implications for the marketing of mobile connections to replace landline connections, given that some fixed connections represent an order of magnitude greater load on a network than a mobile PC connection.

On the other hand, the spatial distribution of PC devices, compared to mobile phones, during peak hours of use, likely is quite different. It might also be the case that mobile PC connections get used much the same way as fixed connections, with peaks in the evening.

Since most mobile networks have spare capacity in the evenings, and since evening use is likely to be distributed over a much-wider area than rush-hour traffic, mobile dongle services might mesh relatively well with smartphone usage, in the same way that business use and consumer use of broadband tends to complement, rather than compete.

71% of Wireless Users Watch Video, 19% Have Uploaded Video

You likely would not be shocked to learn that 62 percent of Internet users watch online video. But you might be surprised to learn that wireless connectivity has emerged as a strong predictor of online video viewing.

Fully 71 percent of users with wireless connectivity watch videos on video sharing sites compared with just 38 percent of those who do not access the Internet wirelessly.

"Our latest data shows that 14 percent of cell phone users have watched video on their devices, slightly up from the 10 percent we found in 2007, Pew Internet & American Life researchers say.

Cell phone users are more likely to record video on their cell phones than they are to watch it, Pew researchers say. About 19 percent of cell phone users now say they have recorded video with their phone, in addition to watching video.

If you wonder why mobile service providers are racing to add bandwidth, that's why: video consumption and video creation.

Many users are turning to the Internet to watch entire television shows and movies, as you also might have guessed. Overall, 35 percent of adult Internet users say they have watched television shows and movies online.

Advertising Hits Tipping Point; Mobile Video Hasn't

It is probably worth noting, with significant attention focused on substitution of mobile and Internet video for traditional packaged multi-channel video, that there's lots of activity, money and attention focused on substitution of other services such as advertising.

And advertising already is at an inflection point: video isn't there yet. That's important for anybody who thinks they may have a chance to build a business based on changes in user behavior.

And inflection points are crucial. Move too early and you die. Move too late and you miss the opportunity.

The analogy: assume firms have a chance to establish themselves when water turns to ice or to steam. Since most major changes in established markets do not occur overnight, the analogy is a gradually rising or falling temperature. For a long time, it appears as though not much is happening.

But then the quantum change occurs. Almost instantly, water changes to gas or forms ice.

That's pretty much what happened to the U.S. newspaper business in early 2009: an accumulation of decades worth of changes produced a quantum change. Video is not there yet. Advertising is, in at least one segment of the business.

Since the tipping point has been reached, we should expect change at a faster rate than has been happening.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/ctia-scorecard-mobile-content/2009-04-06

TV Still Dominates "Three Screen" Viewing

TV Continues to represent 99 percent of viewing on all screens, according to the Council for Research Excellence. Contrary to some recent popular media coverage suggesting that more Americans are rediscovering "free TV" using the Internet, computer video tends to be quite small with an average time of just two minutes (a little more than 0.5 percent) a day.

Despite the proliferation of computers, video-capable mobile phones and similar devices, TV in the home still commands the greatest amount of viewing, even among those ages 18 to 24, the Council says. This appears to refute a common belief that Internet video and mobile phone video exposure among that group (as well as the 25 to 34 cohort) were significant in 2008.

Consumers in the 45 to 54 age group average the most daily screen time (just over 9.5 hours). The study also found the average for all other age groups to be "strikingly similar" at roughly 8.5 hours

Even in major metropolitan areas where commute times can be long and drive-time radio remains popular, computer use has replaced radio as the second most frequent media activity. Radio is now the third most popular media format while and print media ranks fourth.

Live TV led all video usage by a large margin, followed by DVDs, with DVRs third.

http://www.researchexcellence.com/news/032609_vcm.php

Motorola Launches Mobile Video Device

Motorola has developed a stand-alone media player, the DH01 device that works with the DVB-H mobile video standard and also plays on-demand video clips and programs saved on digital video recorders. Motorola, Nokia, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics already make phones that can receive live TV streams. What is different here is that Motorola wants to gauge demand for a stand-alone video device.

At some point, the user desire for simplicity will outweigh the desire for multiple functions in a single device, even as designers work to simplify inherently-complex devices so they will support multiple applications.

Up to a point users seem to enjoy having multiple functions in one device. Email and text plus voice is one example, while voice plus text plus music provides another example. What is less clear is what happens when users are offered devices that add Web services, enabled by Wi-Fi as well as mobile broadband, as well as video. At some point, the cost of a "do everything" device starts to get pretty high, while the functionality has to be balanced, possibly decreasing user satisfaction as a multi-function device will tend to perform less elegantly than a purpose-built device.

The issue is that the range of applications people want to access is growing all the time: gaming, navigation, video, audio, radio frequency identification and sensor network access. At some point, the complexity overwhelms the user experience, which has to be kept as simple as possible.

The other issue is how much tolerance end users exhibit for higher device prices when those devices break, get lost and wear out fairly frequently. It might be one thing to expect replacement or loss of a $100 device. It might be quite another to risk the loss and replacement of a $700 device. With volume and time, the issue arguably becomes less pointed, as features found in $700 devices migrate down the product lline.

Still, some point likely will be reached where users simply find "do it all" devices less desirable than carrying a couple devices that are highly optimized for the applications those people want to use most.