Reel Pop

Movie Piracy: Shrinking DVD Windows, Not Academy Screeners to Blame

The shrinking time window between movie and DVD release -- not Academ screeners or online video -- is responsible for film piracy, according to entrepreneur Andy Baio's annual report.

This year Baio, who's been tracking film piracy since 2004 (and who's startup Upcoming.org was acquired by Yahoo a few years back), concluded that Region 5 DVD transfers from overseas -- those DVDs shipped abroad to coincide with the film's release -- are likely the main source of pirated films, as opposed to watermarked screeners. Among his wealth of data:

• all but six of the 34 nominated films were available in DVD quality by the last week of January
• the DVD release window has shrunk from an average of about four months to about three months over the last few years

More info and downloadable Excel/Google Spreadsheets files here.

Survey Says

Pew: Daily Traffic to Video Sites Doubles
48% of Internet users frequent video sites, up from 33% last year, while (here's the doubling) 15% reported visiting a YouTube-ish site the day before, up from 8% last year. Women lead the increase.

Nielsen: Traffic to some vid sites has doubled since Writer's Strike
Also cites the Pew study above. "YouTube's audience was up 18% in the two months after the strike started, and newer video-sharing sites such as Crackle have also experienced unprecedented growth.
In September and October, Crackle enjoyed an audience of 1.2m users which doubled to 2.4m in November and December, it found."

Survey Says

And now, a few recent surveys and reports released in the past week. The Deloitte survey is especially interesting, as it supports the recent realization that video ads aren't getting that great a response from vid enthusiasts.

• Deloitte: Web users would rather view ads than pay for content online
  Survey of over 2,000 web users. "Ads inserted into videos are among the most hyped by big media companies, but they appear to be the least effective among users. Less than a third want to watch commercials that appear before the start of a clip and only 17% said they will watch an ad that plays during a video."
• Choicestream 2007 Survey of Viewer Trends in TV and Online Video
  Basically argues that consumers would watch more video if they had a viewing guide similar to their TV's. Not surprising, given that Choicestream is a personalization technology provider for portals.
• Experian: Online ad viewers 47% more engaged
  Based on 74,996 interviews; also finds that print is more engaging than TV or online.

The Hottest Web Trend? TV

By Andrew Wallenstein
Deloitte & Touche's "State of Media Democracy" survey out this week isn't quite revealing of anything about the future of the Internet, except maybe the surprising continuing appeal of the medium it is supposed to decimate: television.
Favorite and promising new television shows beat the Web as the most frequent media conversation topics for all generations. Approximately half of both millennials and GenXers visit television Web sites every week. Plus 64 percent of millennials want to easily connect their television to the Internet for viewing videos and downloading content to their television.
If anything, the Web seems to be a "amplification" tool for millennial TV watchers: When they find a particular television show or Web site they enjoy, they tell an average of 18 people, compared with only 10 people for all age groups.

Survey Says

Just a quick note to say that in 2008, we'll be keeping track of reports on consumer behavior via the Research and Reports tag. If we think that any reports/surveys/research papers concerning online viewing habits are noteworthy, we'll mention them briefly and tag them for easy reference.

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday,
Steve