Recently perusing posts on market research, I read a blog reporting recent data about YouTube viewership. The blog stated that “American internet users…watched an average of 200 videos a day in the month of May….According to comScore Inc., a globally-accredited Marketing Research company, about 183 million Americans are tuned in YouTube every month watching 34 billion movies online. This means that there is an average of 186 videos watched per person in the US, based on comScore’s Video Metrix service.”
Hmmmmm. Every American internet user watched an average of 200 videos a day. Let’s assume for a moment that each video is 3 minutes in length. That’s 600 minutes, or 10 hours per day, spent watching videos on YouTube. Even if we assume a length of 2 minutes, that’s 400 minutes or 6.67 hours per day per user.
Plausible? No.
A quick consult of the data originator reveals that “183 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month….U.S. Internet users watched nearly 34 billion videos in May” or 186 videos during the month. With an average length of 4.3 minutes, according to comScore, this equates to 0.45 hours (26 minutes) of viewing per day per user.
Plausible? Yes.
Errors happen, of course. As market researchers, we have a responsibility to both check our facts and to subject our results to a plausibility test. Our credibility, and our ability to influence, are at stake.
Dr. Bob
