Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 22 May 2008 17:50
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 4
The figures for what Aussies and Kiwis are watching online over broadband connections is quite interesting.
The study says that 59% of us “watched or downloaded media content from the Internet in the previous 30 days”. What kind of media (video) content?
Short video clips – presumably of the YouTube variety, or music videos come in at 38%, while news programming doesn’t lead the headlines at only 25%.
Kiwis – the term for New Zealanders – do things differently, as can probably be expected, and are “significantly more likely to have downloaded or watched short video clips than those in Australia (47% vs. 36%, respectively)”.
And why, pray tell, are we watching all these online videos? Because it’s free! Or so say 51% of respondents. Hey, not a bad reason! Beats paying for pay television, especially if you don’t already have it and are already paying for your Internet connection.
That said, if you are paying for pay television, a bit of free Internet TV in the form of short video clips, music videos and news isn’t costing extra, so why not?
Either way, the stats show that a big factor for 37% of Aussies and Kiwis say that Internet video is simply convenient, while 31% love the fact that Internet TV lets them “view content missed when it originally aired”.
Now, I know the ABC in Australia is beta testing a “catch up TV service” like the BBC offers in the UK, and Americans have a plethora of catch-up TV services in the US.
That said, the ABC already offers a wealth of downloadable TV shows now on
their video page and I know you can also download many of their programs through iTunes.
I don’t know what the situation is in New Zealand with the commercial channels, but in Australia, Yahoo7, the online site for Channel 7, offers
plenty of video with previews of upcoming episodes, recaps of already broadcast episodes, other sneak peeks, interviews and the like – but does not seem to offer any actual full episodes to watch.
What about Channels 9, 10, SBS and Telstra BigPond? Are they any legal – and free – actual TV shows to be downloaded in Australia, by Australians on these other commercial networks and other ISPs? And what about that “one media box to rule them all” along with other interesting stats the survey uncovers?
Please read on to page 3.
