Mele’s Musings

Consumers to Watch 25% More Video a Day in Five Years

My wife is going to love this one – now I’m going to be watching even more video!!

Picture: adage.com

Article excerpt:  Viewing on Computers, Mobile Phones Will Drive Increase. Consumption of video content is expected to rise 25% to five hours per day by 2013, compared with the four hours now watched in 2008, according to Forrester Research. The firm suggests the increase will be driven by consumers watching programming of all grades via computers, mobile phones, portable media players and even digital photo frames.  “There will be more advertising inventory coming from this extra hour of video,” said James McQuivey, the Forrester analyst who authored the study containing the prediction about the increase of video consumption. “People will still be watching, but it probably won’t have the same form that we’re used to.” TV as a medium has already begun to overspill its screen, as it were. Video displays are available in the living room, of course, but also at gas stations and in taxicabs, to name just a few places. Content is being produced by everyone, from professional Hollywood studios to amateurs transferring shots from their mobile phones. Forrester calls the phenomenon “OmniVideo,” and expects it to continue to be driven by high-speed internet connections, consumers’ ability to store megafiles of data (including video) and cheap display screens. The rest: adage.com

Musing:  The digitization of media is just creating more opportunities to consume more media – and serve more ads.  The big question is just how different advertising on video will become over the next several years.  As video on demand and video watched via the internet increase, the traditional 30 second commercial will just make less and less sense – on these new devices.  I believe that TV commercials will still exist for a long time on TV, and will still be powerful.  But we have to come to grips soon with the other ways in which consumers are absorbing media and figure out new ways to reach them effectively.