Learn to Make Online Video Pay Washington DC

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Originally published at Internet.com

While most online video is ad-supported, there are some things that viewers are willing to pay for. Read on to discover who's buying and what types of videos make them open their wallets.

Charging for online video might seem crazy in these days of free Flash video on demand and easy Bit Torrent downloads, but a small minority of Web viewers are willing to pay for quality video. In a new Jupiter Research report titled "US Online Video Consumer Survey 2007: Building the Online Video Audience," researchers determined who's buying.

A Moderate Audience
Not surprisingly, the current audience for paid video content isn't large. Of the people surveyed, 4 percent said they'd spent $1 to $5 on online video in the past year, which the authors said probably represented "a couple of TV episodes from Apple's iTunes Music Store or one rental from CinemaNow or Movielink." The numbers decreased from there, with 3 percent saying they spent $6 to $10 and 2 percent saying they spent $11 to $15. The survey found a small spike at the upper end, with 3 percent having spent more that $50 in the previous year.

So who's buying video? The report finds that online video purchasers are more likely to be male, young (ages 25 to 34 was the largest age group), and African-American or Asian. African-Americans made up 27 percent of the buyers, while whites made up only 16 percent.

Furthermore, the authors see a growing future for paid video, as long as its significantly unique and desirable: Although some in the industry have adopted a stance that paid video efforts are doomed to irrelevance, Jupiter Research believes there will always be some content (and some value propositions) that are worth paying for, generally focused on unique, premium, highly desired titles, and firms that meet consumer needs along those lines can avoid purely ad-supported models.

Big Spenders
When the report focused on the largest spenders-those who had spent more than $20 in online video in the past year-it found the user profile became more focused. Men accounted for 76 percent of the group, and nearly all had broadband access. While they tended to be young, they weren't overwhelmingly so.

Members of that group said they'd be willing to increase their viewing if they could get better picture quality, cheaper video, and fewer ads.

Online content providers hoping to reach this audience need to provide not only video that consumers can't find elsewhere, the report concludes, but also offer that video at the highest possible quality.

For more from Jupiter Research, including this report, click