Entourage, Big Champagne and the How Long is the Long Tail?
On Monday, I spoke at the DCIA P2P Media Summit (held on Monday before this week's Digital Hollywood conference in LA). You can view my presentation on SlideShare.
During the sessions, Eric Garland from BigChampagne presented some pretty interesting data related to hit content vs. "long tail" content. Eric presented download data on HBO's Entourage (aside: easily the best show on tv right now) from the night before on the major filesharing networks.
According to Eric, "overwhelmingly, the new content dominates," and the downloads drop off quickly, reinforcing much of what we're seeing with our VOD services (Ch4, Sky Anytime, AOL) in the US and UK. A few of the more interesting statistics:
Entourage Downloads from Sunday night (June 10th):
- Season 1: 18%
- Season 2: 31%
- Season 3: 51%
Of the Season 3 downloads, 88% are individual episodes.
There are 80 available torrents for Entourage:
- Only 11% have any activity
- The top 10 US metro markets = 45% of all activity (the Bay Area leads with 8%)
- The top 10 US states = 59% of all activity
And...what I found to be perhaps the most interesting statistic...22% of downloads are in the US, while 48% are in the UK! Why?
Simple - UK residents don't have HBO. So, they're increasingly turning to the Net for content they can't get in their own market. Pretty interesting, and worth noting if you are a content owner/producer putting content out on the Net.
Conclusions:
1) The majority of people still are focused on "hit" and new release content, even in a completely uncontrolled market (the filesharing networks).
2) Download activity still is highly concentrated in a few major markets.
3) The walls are coming down. People want content to be available beyond its controlled distribution environment, and they'll do what it takes to get it. Positive news if you've got a global distribution strategy and are thinking beyond traditional lines.
