Ooyala measures the anonymized viewing habits of nearly 200 million unique viewers in 130 countries every month. This report about the year 2012 offers a statistically representative view of the overall state of online video.

In this blog we highlight the rapid increase of tablet & mobile video, Long form video content and the best way to engage online viewers out of the ooyala global video index.

The Rapid Increase in Tablet & Mobile Video 2012

The way people watch TV is changing. There are more videos being watched on more tablets and smart phones than ever before. The share of tablet video viewing increased 110% in 2012, while the share of mobile online video viewing grew by 87% last year.
Measured together, the share of all hours spent watching online video on tablets and mobile phones grew 100% in 2012. Tablet and mobile video share grew from 4% in Januari to 8% in December. As more tablets and smart phones enter the market, expect tablet and mobile video consumption to grow rapidly. New Cisco data reveals that video will make 66% of the worlds mobile data traffic in four years.

Long form Video Content

While the percentage of time spent watching short and mid-form videos increased across all device categories the last quarter of 2012, connected viewers still spent a significant percentage of their time viewing long-form videos online. 82% of the total online video viewing time on connected TVs & Gaming Consoles was spent watching long-form video content. Tablet video viewers spent 63% of their total viewing time watching videos longer than 10 minutes.
Long-form video accounted 57% of the total time spent watching online video on personal computers in Q4 of 2012. When we look closer at long-form video viewing habits, we find viewers tuning in to long-form content like movies, TV shows across all connected screens. nearly 25% of total desktop viewing time was spent watching content that ran 60+ minutes.
32% of the total time spent watching tablet video in Q4 was with content running more than one hour long. The percentage of time spent watching long-form video on tablets increased 37% from Q1 to Q4 in 2012.

The best way to engage viewers online? Go Live!

Whether it’s a live sporting event, concert, fashion show, or breaking news, live video has an inmediacy and urgency that leads to longer viewing times across all devices. As more TV content and live streams are put online, the more ‘online video’ will become ‘online television’, with real-time analytics informing personalized ads that target specific viewers, devices and locations.

Some facts:

  • Tablet video viewers watched live video 5x longer than VOD content.
  • Viewers watched live streaming video on Gaming Consoles and Connected TVs for an average of 45 minutes.
  • Live mobile video was viewed for almost 4x as long as VOD content
  • Desktop viewers averaged over 41 minutes of live video viewing.

Source: Global Video Index: 2012 a year in review Ooyala.