US market for online video forecast to grow 32% this year
The US market for online video is forecast to grow by 32% this year, rising from $531 million in 2008 to $699 million in 2009.
While these figures represent downward revisions from Magna’s forecast for the sector in the middle of last year, the gains are likely to outpace growth rates for most other emerging media platforms.
Over the next few years, Magna expects that traditional TV content – and traditional TV suppliers – will continue to account for the bulk of online video budgets, but as user-generated content sites increasingly supply professional content to their mass audiences, these sites will produce faster rates of growth.
Ad networks are predicted to continue to serve a valuable niche to the ecosystem, aggregating otherwise unsold (or undersold) inventory in an efficient manner, with cost-effective ways to reach large audiences.
In total, by 2011, Magna expects online video to generate slightly more than $1 billion in net advertising revenues for video content. This represents a compounded annual growth rate of 36% for each year between 2006 and 2011.
Accenture’s annual Global Broadcast Consumer Survey, released earlier this month, found that while audience fragmentation is continuing, viewing of video content – including via the television set – is growing (see Consumers increasingly watching video content on multiple platforms).
The survey, of more than 13,000 consumers in 13 countries, found that consumption of video content has risen during the past year in virtually every age range and on all formats.
Recent January 2009 data from comScore, meanwhile, showed that the total UK online video viewing audience grew 10% during the previous year to 29.6 million unique viewers age 15 and older (see UK online video viewing audience grows 10%).