Fall TV premieres, coupled with coverage of the presidential election and the financial crisis, boosted online video viewing at all four networks’ websites in September.
NBC.com, which grew 312% month-over-month, saw the largest September increase in video viewers, followed by FOX Broadcasting and ABC.com, with 165% and 105% growth, respectively, Nielsen Online reported Thursday.

Rank
(by UV) 
TV Network
Web Property
Unique Viewers
(in 000s)
% Change:
Unique Viewers
(Aug. – Sept. 2008)

1
NBC.com
5,557
312%

2
ABC.COM
5,246
105%

3
CBS Television
3,296
38%

4
FOX Broadcasting
1,371
165%

Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus (August – September 2008).

Note: Data includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising.

“A combination of series and season premiers, political news and parodies, and coverage …

With digital coverage of the Beijing Olympics more ambitious than ever before and industry analysts issuing dire predictions of the death of TV, The Christian Science Monitor had to pop the question: “Is this the summer that the Internet finally kills television as we once knew it?”
Short answer: the jury is still out.  Monitor staff writer Gregory Lamb, who queried a range of experts on the topic, outlines the arguments on both sides, but steers clear of drawing any conclusions.
The story briefly addresses the prospects for video viewing via mobile …

Like their counterparts in Europe and North America, Chinese Olympics fans are turning to multimedia sources for coverage of the 2008 Beijing Games, according to a recent Nielsen survey of Internet users in China.
In addition to watching the Games on TV, three of four people in China will keep abreast of Olympics events via streaming online video, one-third will rely on mobile phone text updates, and 14% will view video clips of the Games on their mobile phones, Nielsen’s survey found.
Two in 10 Chinese plan to use online video streaming as their main method of …

Broadband users are flocking online to network TV websites, Broadcasting and Cable and The Hollywood Reporter reported Monday.
The stories cited a joint study conducted by Nielsen and the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM), which found that 35% of adults surveyed have watched at least one television program via the Internet.  Of those, 87% have watched television programs directly from a TV network website, while 82% have gone online to catch up on an episode they missed on TV.
But don’t expect online streaming video to replace viewing via traditional TV …

Despite the growing popularity of viewing television content online, most adults (94%) who subscribe to cable or satellite television services prefer to watch television on traditional TV sets, according to new research conducted by The Nielsen Company for the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM).
One-third of the adult broadband users (35%) surveyed for the Nielsen-CTAM study said they had watched at least one television program originally shown on TV via the Internet. Of those who sought out video content online, 87% watched television programs directly from a TV network …