Over the past year, the number of US consumers reporting that TV is their primary screen for viewing paid and free video streamed from the Web has risen from 33 percent to 45 percent, according to The NPD Group. During the same period, consumers who use a PC as the primary screen for viewing over-the-top (OTT) streamed-video content declined from 48 percent to 31 percent. As of the second quarter 2012, 12 percent of the installed base of consumer TVs in the US were connected TVs, totaling more than 29 million devices; approximately 10 percent of US consumer households currently own at least one connected TV. In addition, 43 percent of connected TV users accessed online entertainment directly from their TVs, including online video, music and cloud services.
Netflix Watch Instantly is the dominant application for Web-to-TV video with 40 percent of consumers using Netflix, 12 percent accessing HuluPlus and 4 percent connecting to Vudu. Nearly one in five connected-TV installations resulted in consumers no longer using peripheral devices such as streaming media players, video game consoles and Blu-ray disc players to access streaming video on TV. NPD's quarterly survey includes approximately 1,200 US broadband households and its semi-annual survey include approximately 10,000 respondents.
