ShareThisBy JUSTIN BERTON
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Jonathan Chee, a freshman at University of California Davis, recently overheard some buddies in his dorm laughing about the "World of Warcraft" episode of "South Park." Because Chee doesn't own a television, he watched the show on his laptop later that evening via GoogleVideo. Afterward, Chee switched over to YouTube to catch a few stand-up comedy routines; then he tuned in to a 30-minute televised debate on creationism.
For Chee, it was a normal night watching TV without a television set.
"I used to waste a lot of time channel surfing," Chee said. "Now I watch only what I want, when I want."
Chee is one of a growing number of people, particularly males ages 18 to 24, who've turned to their personal computer for television shows. Last week, the Conference Board, a research company that tracks consumer Internet habits, reported that 1 in 10 online users now watches television on a computer. With YouTube in the mainstream, and major networks offering shows online free, the subtle shift from the television to the PC is under way, analysts say.
"What's happening now is the net result of TiVo and broadband penetration into half of the American homes," said Larry Gerbrandt, senior vice president of Nielsen Analytics, who is working on a report about the growing trend. "TiVo taught this generation you no longer have to watch television when someone tells you to watch it. You should be able to get it whenever, wherever, just like music."
Even though data are just starting to confirm consumers are reaching for their mouse instead of a remote control, analysts also warn this hardly spells the death of the television or even the TiVo component. Nielsen Media reported last month that the average total time a household spent watching traditional television had increased by 3 minutes from the previous year, up to a record 8 hours and 14 minutes per day.
Joe Laszlo, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research, who published a report on the online video audience last month said, "For all the attention it's garnering, it probably hasn't made too much of a dent on television viewing _ yet. But, as the Internet technology begins to bridge that gap, there's the potential for that cannibalism from TV."
Laszlo found that 46 percent of males ages 18 to 24 with broadband access watched "online video heavily" and, as a result, spent less time watching television. The No. 1 complaint against online television watching was that a computer is not a television, Laszlo said. Streaming video still has its glitches, download time can be a deterrent, and archived online material is small compared with what's available through on-demand television and DVDs. Still, an industry race to provide a seamless stream of on-demand television online is in full swing, as dozens of companies are vying for a piece of the market.
"We're in the land-grab phase right now to see who will develop this technology first," Laszlo said. "Whether it's an established provider or a startup remains to be seen."
Google's recent acquisition of YouTube for $1.65 billion appeared to place the Internet giant at the forefront of the race to become the dominant provider. Copyright infringement lawsuits over unauthorized content on the video-sharing site, however, have slowed Google's momentum. Regardless, smaller companies such as BitTorrent and Skype Ltd. have pressed on.
The cofounders of Skype, Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, are reportedly bankrolling what's been code-named the Venice Project, an attempt to inexpensively stream long videos of high-definition TV onto the PC. The project, which was revealed by BusinessWeek last summer and expounded upon by numerous industry blogs, is expected to launch at the end of this year.
In the meantime, perhaps to subvert the free exchange of their own shows, all three major networks started sites earlier this summer to offer free downloads of their premier shows, some of which appear online minutes after the show airs. According to network reports, episode downloads have increased exponentially in recent months, and NBC recently claimed 5 million individual episodes have been streamed off its site so far.
The Conference Board report, which surveyed 10,000 households nationwide found 62 percent of responders went online to watch news broadcasts, while nearly half listed entertainment as their reason for watching online.
Gerbrandt, the Nielsen analyst, said even though growth in online television viewing would ultimately challenge TiVo, the company was far from extinction. As PCs adapt to handle television, television is also luring broadband access, allowing consumers to download Internet files onto their television sets.
Until that day comes, Chee, the UC Davis college student, said he doesn't have any plans to purchase a television.
"It's not convenient for me to watch television anymore, or wait around for something good to come on," he said. "It's a little easier just to go on YouTube and watch something you heard about or catch up on something you missed."
