Online video eating into television audience, says British survey

Interesting article on the BBC website today; they had an independent polling company survey over 2,000 Brits on their video viewing habits, and they found that, of the people that said they regularly watch online video, 43% say they watch less television as a result. The number of total online viewers is still a minority: 9% of the people surveyed said they watch online video regularly, 13% they watched occasionally, and another 10% say they plan to watch online video within the next year. But, remember, there is not nearly as much current British programming available online as there is in the U.S., so that number might grow as the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 rolls out on-demand video on the web, which the article says is due in the next few months.

This is good news, of course, for sites like YouTube, which is gaining more and more "blessed" (read: legal) content as it signs licesnsing agreements with various networks and production companies. If it can actually find a model that's profitable, it's hitting the market at the right time. But, as time goes on, you have to wonder how networks are going to be able to judge TV ratings if a significant number of people are watching a show online. Say, for instance, two million people had watched Kidnapped episodes online in addition to the six million that watched it on TV? Would NBC have saved the show then? Not sure, but the decision would have been much harder, wouldn't have it?

[via Slashdot]