New research indicates that the long-held promise of TV/Internet convergence is gaining traction, albeit slowly. Leichtman Research Group data shows that just over 24% of all U.S. homes have a Web-to-TV connection, while 5% of adults are watching YouTube and Hulu on their TV screens each week.
Leichtman data measured homes with Web-TV connections via video game and Blu-ray systems, as well as compatible TVs. Add in homes that can connect with a TiVo, Roku player or computer, and the amount is estimated to come in just north of 24%.
Leichtman research shows that while 5% of adults watch Web video on the TV weekly, the figure is just 1% on a daily basis. Since game consoles are so widespread, the viewing is largely among young men. Among men ages 18 to 34, 16% are viewing Web video on the big screen weekly via a console, Blu-ray or compatible TV.
The findings come from a survey of 1,250 U.S. homes.
Research from the Yankee Group shows that 23% of homes with an HDTV set have the ability to link the Internet to that screen. Still, only 5% of all homes are watching Internet video on TV.
There have been suggestions that the opportunity to watch video from YouTube, Hulu, ESPN360, CBS Sports and a slew of other sites on a large TV screen could prompt people to cancel a cable or satellite subscription.
But Bruce Leichtman, who conducted the research, said that’s unlikely. The people with the Web-to-TV devices are likely to covet the typical run of TV channels and be willing to pay the price to keep a subscription.
A New York start-up company called Boxee is jumping into the mix. Boxee bills its software as a simple way to access multiple Internet video and music sites, and to bring them to a large monitor or television that one might be watching from a sofa across the room.
Some of Boxee’s fans also think it is much more: a way to euthanize that costly $100-a-month cable or satellite connection.
The software, which is free and available for download at www.boxee.tv, works on Mac and Linux computers, and on Apple’s set-top box, Apple TV. A version of Boxee for Windows PCs is being tested among a limited group of users. Boxee gives users a single interface to access all the photos, video and music on their hard drives, along with a wide range of television shows, movies and songs from sites like Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, CNN.com and CBS.com.
The most ardent Boxee fanatics — almost all of its 200,000 early adopters seem to have turned into online evangelists for the company — then connect their computers to their living room televisions.
The challenge for the cable industry is how they grapple with the fact that this is in some way a substitution for some of the things they do. So will this replace cable subscriptions? I doubt it but it will certainly be interesting to see how many homes this influences in years to come. Services like Boxee will come into the mix but will be used to supplement the entire television viewing experience.
Face it we are a society now that demands content be accessible whenever and wherever we wish.
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