What’s More Important to You: Bandwidth or TV?
Written by Matt McGlinn (contact - e-mail) -- November 12th, 2009 |
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So what’s going on in my house this month that’s forced this Bandwidth vs. TV question? One word: Boxee. I could write a whole post on Boxee (maybe next time) – the short story is that thanks to Boxee, I now have the ability to easily watch videos (Netflix, Hulu, CNN, BBC) through my living room television except my Internet connection can’t handle it. As Captain Kirk would say, “We need more power, Scotty!” So, I’ve placed the order with a new Internet service provider for 4x more speed than I am currently receiving. As a result, I’ll become even less reliant on a television schedule and will bring the instantaneous downloads of Netflix not just to my computer, but to my living room, on the TV, where it belongs.
Naturally, all this got me thinking. We are clearly in the midst of a shift in how media is consumed, but how long will it be until we say something like, “Remember when TV had channels?” The answer may be sooner than you think.
To get an idea of where we are on this consumer shift, I took a look at Compete’s clickstream data for two video websites providing premier content: Hulu.com and Netflix.com. Why these sites? While the online video revolution may have been started by sites like YouTube.com, the premium market is really where the consumer shift is taking place.
Let’s start by looking at Hulu.com – a site that offers more than 1,700 primetime television shows from nearly 190 leading content providers. Below is a chart showing the past year of unique visitor growth to Hulu.com.
- Hulu.com ranks 144 in Compete.com’s website rankings, netting over 7MM unique visitors in September – that’s a 210% growth over this same time last year
- If Hulu.com continued this growth trajectory for another year, we could see it break into Compete.com’s top 50, surpassing unique visitor traffic to sites like the NYtimes.com and Netflix.com
Next, I looked at Netflix.com; more specifically, I looked at the volume of unique visitors to the Neflix’s video player as a proportion of all Netflix.com traffic and saw similar results. While the core of Netflix’s business resides in its traditional DVDs by mail, Compete data clearly shows growing demand for immediate downloads and streaming of Netflix’s catalog.
- From September 2008 to September 2009, Netflix.com’s volume of unique visitors viewing movies and other content online increased 163%
- In September 2008, 6.7% of all Netflix.com domain traffic viewed content through its online video player
- By September 2009, this number grew to 14.3%, more than doubling its penetration, while Netflix.com domain visits saw continued growth, rising 23% year over year
The trends we are seeing in premium online video providers suggest that the shift in media consumption is well under way, and as this continues, more and more consumers will be asking themselves the same question I did – because it’s not about TV or Internet any more. It’s about how much TV you get through the Internet.
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November 12th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Yeah it’s awesome to stream to your TV from the internet easily.
There are a host of applications for Xbox 360 that allow you to stream from both you computer and hulu-type services as well.
I use tversity for that and it works very well.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Streaming is surely the new era. Unfortunately, despite effort by large ISPs and the availability of a good network, it still not off the ground in the Netherlands.
Bandwidth will become more and more important but where does it end? Hopefully we will always be able to go on-demand and watch instantly. If the networks get more filled up and the network is not renewed constantly we may soon be finding a full network and have no more on-demand though!
Oh by the way, Buzzlordm, I can recommend ps3 media server personally, also works for the xbox. It is far easier for streaming than TVersity. Mostly because you do not need to Mux to predefined formats.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
It’s a very interesting time in the content business. Many of the incumbents (studios, retailers, and cable cos) have strong incentives to stall or prevent the transitions from physical to digital distribution and from broadcast to on-demand–even as early adopters continue to flock to services like Boxee that begin to legitimize accessing premium content digitally.
It’s happening very quickly in the gaming business, driven by the growth in mobile & casual games–neither of which is dependent on physical distribution, and both of which are profitable. Digital distribution even seems viable in the near-term for AAA titles via Steam (PCs) and possibly even for consoles (via XBL). (We’ll see about OnLive.)
But the waters are muddier for film & TV. Nobody’s solved the business model in a way that scales yet. Will Hulu’s growth maintain its pace if/when they start charging for content? Hulu’s vision for itself is “as a desktop experience”–hence their ongoing efforts to disable Boxee users from accessing its content via TVs. And the studios are pushing Netflix (and Redbox) to agree to artificial release windows to help stop the bleeding caused by cheap/instant rentals. My point is that the content owners seem intent not to swap old school dollars for new school nickels.
I’m thrilled to see smart TV manufacturers adding built-in Wi-Fi capabilities, and I think Boxee is a glimpse of the future. But the content owners hold the cards, and we may not see wide-scale substitution of bandwidth for cable for several years.
November 15th, 2009 at 1:09 am
quite rightly said, the coming time is not for TV, but TV through Internet. TV through internet has lot of ease and extra features built in it. Life is more relaxed when you can see your favorite program when you get free time, now you are not bound to leave your activities for a favorite program.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:59 am
I think bandwidth is more important to me. Through the bandwidth, I can search anything that I want to see. It’s much broader than TV. And TV has its own limitation.
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