Comcast VOD Hits 6 Billion-View Mark

In the less than four years since its launch, Comcast’s video on-demand service has registered more than 6 billion views, the company said Wednesday.

The VOD service has also had 1 billion hours of on-demand content watched this year alone, with 250 million views each month and 100 views each second, according to Comcast.

With that more than 6 billion VOD views and an average of about 100 VOD titles being viewed each second, Comcast On Demand is outpacing Apple’s iTunes on about a 2-to-1 basis in about the same timeframe, the cable TV operator claimed. iTunes has recorded three billion music downloads to date, and averages about 58 downloads a second, according to Comcast.

Comcast customers are watching more VOD programs in about a six month span than the number of movies seen in a full year by all Americans [with about 1.45 billion movie tickets sold annually], Comcast said.

In other VOD statistics, Comcast said:

* Customers are viewing more than 100 million hours of on-demand programs per month. 

* This year, customers are watching about 50 million to 100 million more on-demand programs per month than in the same months last year. 

* On average, more than 80% of Comcast’s Digital Cable customers have watched on-demand programming in the past 90 days.   

* On average, homes with VOD are watch on-demand programs more than 20 times each month.

* So far this year, in some of the top categories, customers have watched more than: 205 million free movies; 376 million kids shows; 449 million music videos and programs; and 62 million sports and fitness programs.