Australians consider broadband too slow for video downloads, says Yahoo!7

Adam Turner
Monday, 26 February 2007 10:41

Your IT - Entertainment

Australians don't want to watch television shows online because broadband access is too slow, says the head of Yahoo!'s joint venture with the Seven Network.

Seven is the only Australian commercial network not offering video downloads of entire programs, with competitors Nine and Ten recently making the first episodes of new series available for download before broadcast. The ABC also offers video podcasts of popular shows such as The Chaser's War On Everything and plans to expand its offerings this year.

"In our experience consumers don’t want to watch television shows online. Until broadband speeds in Australia reach those of our US and European counterparts we don’t believe there will be huge consumer demand for downloading full episodes," says Yahoo!7 chief executive Ian Smith.

"Yahoo!7 is not about taking Seven’s content and replicating it online. It’s about enhancing the user experience and affording consumers the opportunity to engage more deeply with their favourite TV programs and brands online. This is done in a number of ways – for example via original editorial content, blogs, behind-the-scenes videos, competitions, message boards, polls, online voting all of which engage and involve the audience outside of traditional linear programming."

"What we’re finding is that consumers are demanding a different type of video content. Over the past 12 months our viewers have streamed 36 million videos representing 84 per cent growth. This is across news, movie trailers, music video clips, and episode sneak peaks and recaps of popular Seven programs like Lost, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives and Heroes."

Smith's comments come amid revelations more than a third of Australia's broadband-enabled homes are only on 256 Kbps connections. The Australian Bureau of Statistics survey found the number of broadband connections in Australia has passed 3.6 million, with another 2.75 million users still using dial-up connections.