Disconnected As the variety of internet video programming increases and more outlets offer broadcast favorites, cutting ties with cable isn't as hard as it sounds
By Carolyn Y. Johnson , Globe Staff | June 8, 2008 The Boston Globe
A few months ago, I abandoned the couch and began spending evenings hunched over my laptop watching television.
I won't lie: My desk chair doesn't compare to the couch, the video sometimes hiccups at pivotal moments, and I missed everything that happened on this season's "Top Chef."
But what began as a simple experiment in testing out online video offerings has become a life change. Last week, I broke up with my cable company.
I started out with the premise that for all its hype and wacky two-minute clips on YouTube, online video would pale in comparison to TV. But with broadcast networks, Comcast, and a slew of start-ups stepping into the online video market, the Internet is inching towards its promise as the ultimate form of on-demand programming.
The number of videos viewed online has increased 60 percent over the past year, from 7.2 billion videos in January 2007 to more than 11.5 billion this March, according to comScore, a digital measurement firm. Most of that viewing is short clips. In March, the average online video viewed was 2.8 minutes long, and the average viewer watched 235 minutes.
But a study by market research and consulting firm Horowitz Associates in Larchmont, N.Y., late last year found the number of viewers who reported watching full episodes of TV shows in 2007 doubled from 2006, with 16 percent of high-speed Internet users reporting watching online TV on a weekly basis.
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