More are watching TV on computer
If you haven't already gone online to watch a few TV shows or movies, welcome to a shrinking minority.
More people are canceling their cable TV contracts because they can watch favorite TV shows on their computers -- and more people now watch video online than use a social media Web sites.
Here are more highlights from a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which surveyed 2,253 adults:
- 62 percent of adult Internet users watched a video of some sort online, up from just 33 percent in December 2006, and online video use is near universal by people younger than 18.
- TV shows online are gaining popularity as 35 percent of Internet users say they now watch favorite shows online, up from just 16 percent in 2007.
- The portion of people over 65 watching video online is nearly 30 percent, up from just 10 percent in 2006. At that rate, nearly half of people over 65 may be watching online video in the next few years.
To be sure, the growth of broadband connections helps foster online video. High-speed Internet penetration now exceeds 63 percent in America. The popularity of Web video sites like YouTube and the NBC-backed site Hulu.com are helping push the trend as well.
Cellular video is also catching on, though at a slower growth rate. Fourteen percent of cellular customers now watch video, up from about 10 percent in 2007.
For many years, men watched far more online video than women. That gap has narrowed. The share of women who visit video sharing sites has grown from 46 percent in 2008 to 59 percent now. Among men, 65 percent now watch online video, up from 57 percent in just last year.
All this online video-watching is uprooting the cable TV industry, as well.
More than 22 percent of Americans say they've cut back on their cable TV service and nearly a third of those people have "rerouted" their TV shows by connecting their computer to the TV to display their online videos there.
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