Comcast has reached the 11-billion views milestone for its On Demand video services since the launch of the feature 6 years ago. The cable operator threw out some interesting factoids to help measure the magnitude of its milestone.
Comcast points out that 11 billion views is nearly two times the total number of music downloads (6 billion) sold on iTunes since its launch six years ago. The company adds that 11 billion views is four times the total number of Big Macs sold in the US (3 billion) over the same time period and 30 times the total number of Harry Potter books sold around the world (375 million copies). Yeah, it’s a lot. – via TechCrunch
I’m sure if you throw in the double cheeseburger for $.99, McDonalds is kicking butt. Besides, it’s all about the french fries.
I wasn’t at any of the cable conventions and didn’t hear Comcast make the iTunes and MickeyD’s comparisions, though Comcast definitely trumpted the 11 billion in a press release announcing the availability of PBS On Demand.
Because comparing something that is already included in your cable subscription to things you have to pay for each time is totally a fair comparison! PR people, you’ve done it again!
some of the on-demand offerings (AKA, EVERYTHING from NBC) carry an extra charge, but I’m guessing that’s 11 billion views of stuff that was included in your package plus a couple hundred thousand accidental views of NBC content.
In fairness, the press release was about PBS On Demand. While it mentioned the 11 Billion (ok, twice, once in its own section) it made no comparisons to iTunes or McDonalds, so I’m not sure that is on the PR people. I haven’t been following the “who said what” at the Cable upfronts and conferences closely, but the only place I saw those references were in the TechCrunch story I cited.
Isn’t it a good thing though that they are promoting it? Could that mean they might finally be focused on it?
Could this lead to a world where they focus on getting more content OnDemand all the time? It could be Hulu through the cable box, which is what everyone ultimately wants. It gets around the issues that are causing Boxee users so much pain because it goes through the cablecos and the content owners can put as many ads in as they want because its not being watched on a computer.