Over the past six months, the popularity of online video services in the US has grown significantly with women and older consumers, helping close the age and gender gap within the burgeoning online video audience, according to new data from Ipsos MediaCT.
Ipsos MediaCT’s MOTION study illustrated the widespread appeal online video services have with the majority of today’s internet users, and how streaming video in particular has helped build an audience with women and those aged 35 and older.
Hearst Digital published research in September which found that more women over 45 are using the internet once a day than those aged between 16 and 24 (see New Research Looks At Women’s Online Habits).
The We Know Women Online survey also found that a large majority of women (85%) use the internet daily, with the 25 to 34-year-old age group being the most frequent users.
The Ipsos study revealed that since late 2007, the percentage of female internet users ages 12 and older that have streamed a video online in the past 30 days has grown from 45% to 54% – an all-time high for this demographic and nearly equal to the percentage of men (58%) whom have recently streamed video content online.
Moreover, the percentage of adults aged 35-54 that have recently streamed video online has also shot up since December 2007, rising from 49% to 60% in that time span.
Video streaming is no longer simply an online behaviour enjoyed exclusively by the stereotypical early adopter segment – young males. Rather, the growth in the online video audience is now being driven by other demographic segments, said Ipsos.
Adam Wright, director at Ipsos MediaCT, said: “It appears the prevalence of streaming video online among younger males may be approaching a ceiling today, whereas the other demographic groups are driving the audience growth here.
“The implication for those in the video entertainment industry is that online video – as a medium – appears to be tapping into later stage adopter segments that were perhaps reticent to embrace it even just a year ago.”
At the start of last month, a survey of US households from ABI Research found that the total number of consumers watching video streaming through a browser in the US has doubled over the past year, going from 32% to 63% (see Number Of US Households Watching Online Broadband Video Has Doubled).
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