About one-third of consumers stream movies or TV shows online through a paid subscription service like Netflix or Hulu-Plus
The number of Americans with access to the Internet has more than doubled since the year 2000, reaching 274 million from 132.2 million, according to the U.S. Digital Consumer Report done by Nielsen and NM Incite. Inevitably, online content is progressively becoming a dominant form of entertainment. The report revealed that at the end of 2011, about one-third of consumers streamed movies or TV shows online through a paid subscription service like Netflix or Hulu-Plus, two key players in online streaming of TV and movie content. In October of 2011, Hulu had about 12 million unique video users from home computers while Netflix had about 6.2 million. About 31% of Hulus audience and 40% of Netflixs falls in the 18 to 34 age range. Women are the predominant users of both sites with 57% on Hulu and 59% Netflix. As far as race, both services have more a 75% predominantly white audience. Interestingly enough, Hispanics are more likely to watch videos on Netflix rather than Hulu.
