We all have something called a “BS meter.” It is what starts ringing when you hear something that you know is malarkey. Mine went off today in response to a report that was published by Nielsen about video consumption. The important numbers can be found here. I’ll summarize the findings: only 1% of all watched video is online. Now, gut reaction, does that sound right? Or course not! Let’s take a look.
Most of the report (the full PDF is here), is filled with tidbits on television viewing, which is at an all time high of 153 hours a month average. I never watch TV, so I cannot comment on that, but it seems consistent with what I have heard a dozen times. Whatever. The internet numbers are what we need to focus on. That one percent breaks down into 131 million people watching three hours of video a month. Sounds innocuous enough, until you begin to question where they received their data from. Do you think that they have any data for pirated content? I bet not, and that alone makes the statistic bogus.
In 2004, P2P accounted for an …
