This makes for an interesting comparison with a Nielsen study I wrote about back in July, which found a 16 percent increase in watching overall online video from September 2006 to March 2007. In that case, only 13 percent of viewers said that watching video online happened at the detriment of television content. Perhaps either they didn't watch that much television in the first place or watched video online in ways that didn't interfere with television viewing, including watching TV online at places they normally wouldn't be watching TV, i.e. the workplace. At the time, I wrote:

More than that, though, when thinking about professionally produced online video content, it shouldn't come as a major shock that making that video available online might help create more television viewing for many. Cross-platform distribution provides further ways of time-shifting. As opposed to the DVR or the VCR, this type of time-shifting is even less reliant on the linear trajectory of the television lineup, because one can remember to go to a Web site to watch a video days after it initially aired on TV, whereas you can only watch something on DVR if you remembered to program it to record the program beforehand.

Then there was the IBM study which touted the decline of TV as the primary media device in the home and pointing out that "personal Internet time rivals TV time," a study that I found problematic in some ways and wrote about here. Also germane to this discussion is a study from earlier this year that found downloading video an unsatisfactory experience.

What does it all mean? Are people watching more TV online? Certainly. Are there more online TV options than ever before? Absolutely. Is it at a tipping point? Not yet.

And what does it mean for traditional television viewing? Not the apocalypse; of that, I'm certain. There are still many reasons people prefer television, although I think the proliferation of TV shows online and the spread of broadband will necessitate an eventual emphasis on content rather than platform as the primary driver for ad dollars. As I pointed out with the Jericho viewing controversy, the problem is increasingly a media industry built on valuing some forms of official viewership over others and audiences who increasingly watch across a variety of platforms. For fans, watching content legally online or through the DVR or VOD or a variety of other time-shifting options is equal to watching in first-run, but the TV industry is still set up on a first-airing prioritized model, just as film is set up on an opening weekend model. Changing to create effective business models around this content is not easy, and the more people I have met across the media industries ensures me that there are many smart people very aware of these inconsistencies, but the problem is systemic, and those are the harder ones to solve...