The Summer of Online Entertainment
July 30th, 2010
Portia Krebs
From online video to broadband music content and e-books, the high-speed Internet is seeing impressive demand this summer for online entertainment. A few recent studies show just how much Americans are flocking to these new ways of staying entertained.
New data from Nielsen shows that more than 10 billion videos were streamed in the U.S. in June alone, a 4 percent jump over the previous month. YouTube took the top spot in terms of the highest volume of streams and number of unique viewers. Yahoo, Facebook, Hulu, Google, and Microsoft sites were also high ranking in terms of viewership. MTV Networks ranked eight in videos streamed, demonstrating the demand for online music.
Given the voracious demand for online video, it makes sense that advertising content on video sites would rise accordingly. Now, there are new numbers from eMarketer demonstrating this explosive growth, as featured in a recent Adweek article. According to eMarketer, right now 147.5 million Americans, or two-thirds of U.S. Internet users, tune into online video a minimum of once per month – a number that is projected to jump to 193.1 million by 2014. No surprise then that U.S. online video ad spending will rise too, in proportion to this growth. This year alone, ad spending specifically related to online video will increase by 48.1%, or $1.5 billion. Fast forward to 2014 and that number will reach $5.5 billion.
Online video isn’t the only entertainment option taking the Internet by storm this summer. Bloomberg recently reported that e-book sales for Amazon’s Kindle outpaced hardcover sales over the last three months – marking the exponential increase of digital readership. Broadband entertainment is a growth industry, and finding the right option from an array of programming has never been so easy or enjoyable.
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