USC Annenberg's Center for the Digital Future announced results from a new Visual Networking Index (VNI) Pulse Survey, sponsored by Cisco, designed to assess worldwide consumer video behaviors and attitudes. The study highlights consumer video consumption and attitudes about video in the United States, urban China, Germany, and Sweden.
Survey respondents answered questions regarding their level of access to media technology, the devices they used for viewing video, the amount of time they spent watching video on different devices, and the reasons they watch video content.
More than 1,000 consumers from each of the four target countries completed online or telephone questionnaires about their video usage during the month of November 2008.
Key findings
- U.S. consumers watch the most TV: an average of 3.8 hours per day. Germans watched 2.9 hours on average; Swedes, 2.1 hours; and urban Chinese, 1.8 hours.
- Urban China has the largest percent of users who watch online video via their PCs, at 97 percent, with the U.S. following at 81 percent.
- The U.S. has the largest percentage of users watching video on a mobile phone, at 23 percent.
- U.S. respondents who watch video on their mobile phone spend an average of 36 minutes per day doing so.
- Eighty-five percent of the German respondents are interested in viewing Internet video on their TV sets, compared with 55 percent of Swedes, 54 percent of Americans, and 35 percent of urban Chinese.
- U.S. respondents watch 2.5 times as much professional video content (TV programs and movies) as they do user-generated video content on their PC or laptop. German respondents watch twice as much user-generated video on their PC or laptop as they do professional video content.
- On average, American respondents who use a PC or laptop to view video spend 1.5 hours per day doing so. They are well ahead of the Swedes (who spend 0.7 hours per day), equal to the Germans (1.5 hours per day) and slightly below the Chinese (1.9 hours per day).
"Networked video is everywhere," said Ken Wirt, vice president of consumer marketing for Cisco. "People around the world of all demographics are using networked video as a communications medium to connect with the people and the content they care about most. Whether they are seeking entertainment, information, education or communications, people are using video to meet their needs. With medianet-enabled networks as the platform for these consumer video experiences, service providers can enable the highest-quality visual networking experiences possible."
