Online video is continuing to grow, a fact those of us who keep an eye on the goings on in the industry already knew, but which has now been proven by statistics.

The stats in question this time come from Comscore, and cover the month of March. The figures show that there were 11.5 billion video views during the month, an increase from February and a new record to boot.

A New Record Set

Before March, the previous highest amount of video views in any one month was the 10.15 billion achieved last December, but that figure has now been roundly beaten.

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Each year during May, the television networks present their schedules to advertisers, a ritual which has become known as “Sweeps”.

The viewing figures during May determine the level of advertising revenue the networks can expect to get for the year ahead, and so all the big shows are débuted at this time.

However, this time there is a slight problem, as the sweeps have shown that prime time television in the States has lost six million viewers in a year.

Joint Reasons

There are two reasons for this, the first being the writers strike from the back end of last year and early this year which saw shows take an enforced hiatus and consequently made viewers make the switch to cable television and beyond.

However, the bigger and more important reason, is the increase of viewing options open to people now. From digital video recorders such as TiVo and on demand Web video, viewers now have more choice than ever before.

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Anyone left in any doubts as to the value of Web video can argue no longer, as we now have a full length movie being released on DVD, all based on what started as a five minute viral YouTube hit.

Last year saw 300 released, a movie detailing the brave souls of the legendary Spartan army who fought against the Persian army until death or glory became their saviour.

Inspiration For Spoofs

When 300 came out, a huge amount of spoofs were made and put on YouTube, Yahoo Video, Metacafe and the like. Most of these were mash-ups mixing 300 with other films, and pop culture references such as Monty Python.

However, there was one which stood out against all the others, being a well made, brilliantly produced original piece detailing the Spartans who didn’t quite make the movie. Named 305, it was viewed by almost 4 million people, and became a true viral hit.

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We learnt yesterday that social music network Last.fm has started creating original video programming to drive traffic to it. These will take the form of music interviews and live concert footage.

Now, Bebo, the third largest social network behind MySpace and Facebook has announced that it too is starting to create original programming, including a reality TV show called Gap Year.

The show will follow six lucky Bebo members as they travel the globe all expenses paid.

One Billion Video Views A Month

While speaking to Beet.tv, Ziv Navoth, Vice President of Bebo also spoke about hos many video views the network drives, an astonishing one billion every month.

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Mobile TV is one of the fastest growing sectors in the new range of television services emerging, with Asia, Europe and the US all showing signs of a desire to watch TV on the move using mobile devices.

Yesterday, The New York Times published a piece about the phenomenon, how the services, and take up amongst consumers, vary around the world, and how the fight is still on to be the single standard of choice for mobile video.

Asia Leading The Way

At the moment, Japan is the world’s leader in direct mobile television, with over 20 million mobile phones thought to be equipped with television receivers, and capable of receiving signals.

South Korea is not too far behind, with 8.2 million mobile phones in use with the ability. Worldwide, the number of people who view mobile TV is estimated to be about 29.7 million, although this is expected to double by the end of 2008.

Asia may be leading the way, but Europe and America are gradually catching up.

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Just two days I spoke about StartYourTube, a website which allows you to start your own video sharing service, however niche, to cater for people similar to you.

StartYourTube uses the popularity of YouTube in a number of ways, by mimicking the name, and using the sale of YouTube to Google for $1.6 billion to entice people to sign up.

It’s not the only site to use YouTube to increase its own profile, and one which has done it brilliantly successfully is GodTube, a Christian video sharing site which has just obtained funding to the tune of $30 million. We first spotted this site about a year ago.

$30 Million Investment

Rafat Ali at Paid Content reveals the news of the $30 million injection of cash from investors, on top of the $2.5 million which the site had already secured earlier in its life.

What’s amazing about this level of funding is that the site only launched last summer in Dallas, Texas, but has seen itself become one of the fastest growing websites on the Internet.

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Web Television is growing, that’s a fact that is indisputable at this moment in time. As broadband speeds increase, that’s only likely to carry on from now on.

In the end, there will come a time when we’re all watching television on demand over the Internet using a set top box. The idea of traditional television will then be dead.

Until that happens however, we have a bit of a dead zone, where as much as networks want to embrace the new technology and new ways of distributing their content, there isn’t the money there to make it worth their while.

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