TV is “trying anything and everything. They want to see what sticks. They want to be ahead of the curve,” says Jeffrey Cole, director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future. Online viewing, while still in its infancy, is growing dramatically. ABC recorded 5.7 million streaming requests in the spring and 7.2 million from Sept. 22 to Oct. 16.
NBC, which streams episodes of six new series on NBC Rewind, went from 2 million streams in the first week of the fall season to 4 million in the fourth. (In comparison, more than 20 million people tune into CSI each week on their televisions.) Viewers watched NBC’s shows for an average of more than 22 minutes during the week of Oct. 14, helping nbc.com to the top spot in time spent visiting (11.3 minutes) and total visits among broadcast network websites. ABC’s streaming site was one of the four fastest-growing U.S. websites in September, according to Hitwise, which monitors online usage.
“The ultimate goal is to see if we can add new viewers to the on-air (broadcasts) because clearly, that’s where the bigger payoff is,” says NBC’s Jeff Gaspin.
And CBS spokesman Chris Ender says early results indicate the streaming episodes are helping broadcast viewership. “There’s no evidence that it has hurt yet. We see it as being very additive,” he says.
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