NEW YORK – Three out of four digital video consumers said they would find it "reasonable" to include ads in the free digital distribution of full-length TV shows and movies, but far fewer support the idea of having to watch ads to view shorter clips according to a new survey.
The number open to ads drops to two-thirds when included with free music videos, short news, or sports clips, according to results released today by Ipsos MediaCT. Motion, an ongoing digital video tracking study, found that 52% of those ages 12 and up who have viewed video online do not think it’s reasonable to include ads with free amateur or homemade videos.
"As might be expected, digital video consumers generally find it more acceptable to have advertising included within longer, professionally produced video offerings such as full-length movies or TV shows, should this content be available for free online," says Adam Wright, director of Ipsos MediaCT, in a statement.
"Fewer are ready to accept this ‘price of admission’ for shorter-form content or less-professional polished content. Still, for most video content types, the majority of these consumers find the trade-off between free video content with advertising to be a fair value proposition."
Wright says video sharing websites, such as YouTube, need to take pay particular attention to the results as they begin to diversify their content offerings to include longer, more professionally produced material that may be supported by advertising.
“Ad-subsidized service models will have to be carefully considered by these video sharing websites, since their current audience has grown accustomed to free streams without any advertising,” explains Wright. He adds that as advertising starts to appear within their offerings, it has the potential to alter attitudes, perceptions and usage of these sites.
"Indeed, given its substantial usage levels among today’s digital video consumers, YouTube would appear to have a lot at stake as it begins to experiment with ad-subsidized content."
