Video nation

As Americans, we're frequently told to take shame in our low broadband penetration and in the gap between other countries' consumer telecom technology and our own. In broadband penetration, we rank 16 among the world's industrialized nations. (If the modems break down in a few huts in Uganda, we're back in the top 15.) South Korean kids are playing streaming, online multiplayer games on their cell phones, and Parisians are lighting their cigarettes with optical fiber. Meanwhile, a third of American households have no alternative to access the Internet other than dial-up.

But as broadband becomes more video-centric, this country could very well take more of a leadership position, commanding and rewarding the lion's share of investment in cutting-edge video technology and setting global broadband technology trends. Because, simply stated, nobody, but nobody, watches video screens like we do. The average American watches more than four-and-a-half hours of TV a day. That's 90 minutes more than the world average. (Does TiVo even watch that much TV?)

And our lead in that category will probably only increase. We already use video to sedate our toddlers for the 10-minute drive to the grocery store. And once inside the store (at least in the case of some Wal-Marts this year), they watch videos in the shopping cart. When those kids grow up, they won't want a moment of their lives to pass without at least one video screen nearby. In the shower, doing laundry, driving — whatever. If it's possible to watch movies in your sleep, they'll do it.

I'm no better, by the way. I once missed a flight because I couldn't pull away from an episode of “That's So Raven.” Concerned that I watch way too much TV, my wife urged me to do more reading, so now I just watch TV with the closed captioning on.

All that consumption gives us powerful influence in the direction of video technology and services, as there's a lot of money to be made feeding our videophilia addiction. Americans are the largest consumers of video-on-demand services, for example, with 63 million households contributing no less than 44% of the VOD market's total revenue, according to Informa Media and Telecoms. Asia will overtake us by 2010, but I bet that's just a matter of raw population numbers. The Chinese are a hard-working, industrious people; surely we can out-couch-potato them. They can outnumber us, but we can consume more video per person. We'll stay up late if we have to. Maybe even watch some shows more than once. We can do it if we're truly committed to being leaders.