Adults Like Watching Web Videos Too

Posted on November 15, 2006

Forbes.com reports on a recent BIGresearch study of the online video audience. The study found that older people watch videos and not just teens and young adults. The article cites a couple other studies that found that online videos, while popular, are not the most popular web activity. Activities like email, IMs, sharing photos are still more popular that watching videos online.

But despite the fact that teens and college students account for a big chunk of the online video audience, BIGresearch estimated last month that the average age of U.S. viewers is an ancient 39. And according to data compiled by Nielsen/NetRatings, comScore and Quantcast, Web surfers ages 35 to 64 make up anywhere from 48% to 65% of YouTube's audience.
Despite the seeming omnipresence of online video, viewing those clips still isn't among the top three most common online activities, which Forrester Research found in April to be e-mail (96%), instant messaging (37%) and playing games (36%). Watching online video ranked fourth at 25%, outpacing downloading music (12%) and downloading movies (3%).
Among heavy Internet users studied by Universal McCann and InsightExpress, 54% watched online video or streamed live music. But that still lagged far behind shopping (84%), entering contests (80%), playing games (73%), listening to Internet radio (71%), reviewing a product (68%) and sharing photos (67%).
And here are some numbers for advertisers to mull over: When asked by the Online Publishers Association in March how they respond to online video ads, an impressive 31% said they checked out the company's Web site, while 14% went to a store to check out the product and another 14% requested more information.

The press release from BIGresearch about the study that found the average age of video watchers to be 39. The study also found that the average income for web video watchers is $54,913. The study was actually about video and music content and not just video content. The study didn't seperate the two forms of content.