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Study: TV Everywhere is taking over everything

It's no surprise that video on-demand content has grown from an occasionally-used feature to one of the most popular ways to watching movies and TV shows. However, the rate of growth at which it is expanding is more telling.
Written by Rachel King, Contributor

It's no surprise that video on-demand content has grown from an occasionally-used feature to one of the most popular ways to watching movies and TV shows. However, the rate of growth at which it is expanding is more telling.

According to research conducted by the Parks Associates research firm, there will be approximately 50 "TV Everywhere" sources by July 2011. (To clarify, that's not just the TV Everywhere project owned by the Dish Network nor the TV Everywhere joint initiative, a.k.a. Xfinity, belonging to Comcast and Time Warner.)

Even though some of the big cable providers have launched some of the more popular VOD services, they're still the ones who seem to be the most scared - yet maybe the most to gain - as TV Everywhere continues to spread.

Home Media Magazine reports:

TV Everywhere is becoming increasingly important for pay-TV operators who are losing consumers, as subscribers who recently canceled their service said the ability to use their pay-TV content across devices would help them consider signing back on for services. The 18- to 24-year-old set was most interested in TV Everywhere services, Parks reported, with 40% of respondents in that age group calling the services “very appealing.”

It's also not much of a surprise that Parks Associates attributes much of this change to the increase in sales and usage of tablets and smartphones. All of these seem to have explode onto the scene and rely on each other somewhat. Video streaming is a feature that caters most to viewers on-the-go, and tablet and smartphone makers have acknowledged this with integrating better displays, graphics and processors.

Both pay TV providers and other video streaming sites such as Hulu Plus and Netflix have recognized the importance of these mediums by rolling out apps for at least the more popular mobile operating systems at the moment: iOS and Android.

Do you still prefer watching your favorite programming as it airs on TV, or do you prefer using a streaming service on your computer, mobile device or Internet-connected TV?

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