The average American watches more than five hours of TV per day, but pretty soon that leisure time may be dominated by YouTube and other online video services.
In an address at CES 2016, YouTube's chief business officer Robert Kyncl argued that digital video will be the single biggest way that Americans spend their free time by 2020 – more than watching TV, listening to music, playing video games, or reading.
The amount of time people spend watching TV each day has been pretty steady for a few years now, Mr. Kyncl pointed out, while time spent watching online videos has grown by more than 50 percent each year. Data from media research firm Nielsen shows that it's not just young people watching online videos, either: adults aged 35 to 49 spent 80 percent more time on video sites in 2014 than in 2013, and adults aged 50 to 64 spent 60 percent more time on video sites over the same time period.
Why the shift?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 13 2016, @01:29PM
The problem with the theory is its all calculus infinitesimals and continuous functions, whereas reality is there's a handful of major pro sports contracts that could drive everything online if NFL Football dumps FOX or whatever and goes youtube or whatever. Also I think some pro sports contracts extend past 2020 already, so you'd need a broken contract, either mutually or massive legal issue.
Another good one would be there's only a couple "major networks" and if one or two go bankrupt in the next recession due to imploding ad revenue or whatever cause, the studios are still going to want to pump out content and they're just gonna sell to amazon or netflix or whatever, rather than close.
Its far more likely to be some insane step function where networks or OTA sports suddenly dies in some new york city boardroom, and the next day everyone uses netflix or whatever.