Video on Demand
At a conference in New York last week, AOL Media President Michael Kelly was quoted as saying, "All e-media content will be available on demand in five years."
Just what is video on demand? August Grant and Jennifer Meadows in Communication Technology Update define it as "A pay-per-view television service in which a viewer can order a program from a menu and have it delivered instantly to the television, typically with the ability to pause, rewind, etc." And, of course, there is also online video on demand.
Current content extends from movies on demand to the NBA offering VOD basketball games in China.
TV households with video on demand actually watched more TV than did those without VOD, according to an AdAge Online report on a joint study by Nielsen Media Research and Comcast. Not surprisingly the VOD audience appears to be younger with VOD use high in the 2-11 and 18-34 age groups. Accurate measurement of VOD is particularly difficult, and both Nielsen and Comcast plan more tests.
Also an article in the New York Times this week reported on changes that Nielsen Media Research has made in reporting television viewing in households with digital video recorders (DVRs). Nielsen is now reporting figures for live TV viewing and also for live plus 24 hours and live plus seven days. Which figure do you use in calculating rates for a 30-second commercial?
Olympic snapshot
The first days of the winter Olympics show NBC's Web site is attracting a much larger number of viewers than previous games. Page views were up 63 % from the 2004 summer games and 400% from the Salt Lake City winter games in 2002.
In addition to the daily TV broadcasts, NBC is offering information in a number of packages, according to the Washington Post. A daily podcast with anchor Bob Costas, downloadable through iTunes, is one example. Other business partners include Google and rival ESPN.com
Gracie on convergence
Assistant professor Gracie Lawson-Borders will speak on Media, Technology and Convergence Thursday as the first lecturer in the College of Communication and Information's Distinguished Scholar Series. Lawson-Borders is the author of Media Organizations and Convergence: Case Studies of Convergence Pioneers (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006). She also teaches a class on media convergence.
The speech will be 9:30-11:30 a.m. in Murphy Auditorium in the KSU Museum.