Avail: Over-the-Top video still small, but don’t ignore it

ORLANDO – “The TV experience is not going away,” Ramu Potarazu, CEO of Avail-TVN, told attendees at the Telco TV show today, addressing their concerns about the rise of over-the-top video offerings but backing up his assertion with hard data.

Despite the rise of various Internet-based video offerings, the average time Americans spend watching TV was actually slightly higher in the second quarter than it was a year earlier, he said (140 hours a month versus 139 hours in 2008). The Internet still represents only about 3% of total video consumption, and that number isn’t growing rapidly.

“It’s a very small percentage of what’s going on,” Potarazu said. “It’s mostly user-generated content.”

Moreover, although Hulu now has 38 million users, each one watches an average of only 8 minutes a month, he said. And most of that viewing (60%) is being done by just 5% of its users (about 2 million people).

“I’m not sure that’s a great TV experience,” he said.

Not long ago, he said, Avail, which offers IPTV content on a wholesale basis to telcos and other service providers, was asked how telcos would compete with over-the-top offerings from Akimbo, Maven and Joost. “They’re not in existence [now],” he said.

At the same time, Potarazu said the telco industry shouldn’t ignore what’s happening from over-the-top providers. Rather, they should find a way to combine it with their current offerings.

“You can’t disregard what’s happening,” he said. “You have to be able to extend your platform to address this issue. It’s how you put together a complementary solution that will help you address this issue…How can you make sure you have an extensible platform? What’s the next Hulu? What’s the next Joost?”