Long-Form Video Gaining Viewers on the Web

movenetworks.pngWhen it comes to Web video, short clips under three minutes still make up the vast majority of what people watch. But as the quality of video improves, more people will be willing to sit and watch streams of half-hour sitcoms, hour-long dramas, and maybe even entire movies. Already, there is some anecdotal evidence of this shift.

Move Networks—which powers the media players and back-end streaming infrastructure for ABC, ESPN360, Fox On-Demand, and the Discovery Channel—released the following data today for videos streamed from all its customers’ Websites collectively:

· So far in November, more than 100,000 new individuals are watching long-form video (anything 20 minutes or over) online each day, twice as many as in August.

· In November, the average session length is more than 50 minutes.

· In October 2007, more than 6 million people watched long form streaming video online.

· Since March 2007, Move has streamed almost 50 million hours of television.

These numbers still pale compared to actual TV, but as the growth continues they will start to attract even more advertising dollars than they do already.