52% of U.S. adults have watched online video

Pew report finds online video consumption continues to rise

With videos from YouTube and Hulu embedded all across the Web, there's no denying online video is everywhere.  A new study by Pew Internet backs this notion finding that seven in ten Internet users (69%) or roughly half (52%) of all U.S. adults have used the Web to watch or download video.  

The survey, which sampled 763 Internet-using adults went into further detail as to the kinds of videos being watched online.  Comedy has has risen in viewership from 31% to 50%.  Educational videos has risen 22% to 38%.  Movies and TV shows in general have risen from 16% to 32%, and Political videos have risen from 15% to 30%.  

Pew argues the reason for such an increase is due to the spread of broadband and an increase in social networking usage.  For example, people sharing links on their Facebook walls or status updates on Twitter.  Also, video giants like YouTube and its powerful embedding and sharing features have contributed to this surge of online video consumption.

How about getting that online video on your television set?  The number is actually quite small with only 8% reporting they have connected their computer to their TV's.  This is probably due to the technological barriers like having to purchase special audio and video cables to get it all working properly.  This number is likely to change with the coming of Google TV and HDTV's on the way with built in access to the Web.

It's also interesting to note the survey was taken in 2009, so these figures are more than likely to be even higher than what Pew has published this week.