The writers' strike in the US has led to an increase in the number of online
videos being watched, according to
Nielsen
Online.
The strike by the
Writers
Guild of America has forced some shows off the air and resulted in an
increase of repeated programmes on US television channels.
According to figures from Nielsen Online, traffic on
YouTube
rose 18 per cent in November and December 2007.
However, the biggest gains were on video website
Crackle, which
saw its traffic jump by 105.6 per cent in the two months since the strike kicked
in.
Crackle's regular 1.2 million users doubled to 2.4 million during November
and December.
Dailymotion's
traffic for the period was up by 12.6 per cent, and
LiveVideo's
increased by 9.4 per cent.
However, the gains could also be explained by dips at rival video websites
MySpace,
MSN and
Yahoo
which all saw traffic fall between 3.5 per cent and eight per cent over the
period.
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