A La Carte Paid Video Downloads Are A “Dead-End”: Report
A la carte paid video downloads, such as those offered at Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s Unbox, will peak in 2007, generating $279 million in revenue, up from $98 million last year. Instead, ad-supported and subscription based models will drive the online video market, according to Forrester Research. Forrester’s survey showed that only 9 percent of online adults have ever paid to download a movie or TV show. And that tiny minority is primarily composed of “niche of media junkies” willing to spend heavily on such content; they do not represent mainstream consumers, according to the study.
“The paid video download market in its current evolutionary state will soon become extinct, despite the fast growth and the millions being spent today,” says analyst James McQuivey, the study’s author. He predicts that TV and cable networks will shift the bulk of paid downloading to ad-supported streams where they have control of ads and effective audience measurement. The movie studios, whose content only makes up a fraction of today
More on the Forrester survey…
Why won't anyone comment on the claims instead of reporting them as if they were fact? Surely someone with some journalistic integrity would have taken Forrester to task on their apalling inaccuracy of predictions in the past that suggest there's no reason to take this "report" any more seriously than the dozens of "reports" in the past that have mostly missed the boat completely.
I'm disappointed with the media today. All except Cinema Tech have basically copy and pasted the Forrester report without any analysis or even research (it would seem).
Philip
Methinks thou dost protest too much. Didn't Forrester also predict the market wouldn't pay per download of songs? Of course if you wait long enough – even decades – you can always point a finger somewhere to say "see, we were right".
Hmmm….I find it suspect if not downright goofy to be so certain of such a prediction. What do I believe? I think you'll see a lot more splitskies. Meaning, for certain kinds of content on certain kinds of platforms pay per download will work. For others, it'll be all ad based baby. When will these tired old school research firms quit pretending they've got some frigging crystal ball? Oh yea, because they have to sound like they know what they're talking about to the old school media outlets who pay them to say what they already believe. Gimme some sugar daddy, I'z gots to go powder my nose.
Philip,
I agree with you entirely about the wholesale parrotting of this Forrester report. Over at my blog, IP Democracy, I did indeed look critically (see http://www.ipdemocracy.com/archives/002485will_free_or_feebased_web_video_prevail.php) at the claims of the study and concluded that both free and fee-based content downloads have a future.
The report was intentionally ham-handed to generate the press coverage it has. That's just the nature of the market research beast.