ABC (DIS) has taken the early lead in the Internet sweeps as they started to offer their shows online in spring of 2006. It took the other broadcasters until the fall to get their shows online. As a result the lead that ABC has for full-episode streams is substantial.
Concerning Internet traffic itself, NBC (GE) draws about the same as ABC at around 9.5 million unique monthly visitors, for the months October-December. CBS (CBS) is next with 5.2 million uniques and Fox (NWS) brings of the rear of the big four with 2.8 million, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
As far streaming prime-time episodes of their show, ABC.com leads in a huge way over the rest of the networks. Their big shows "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives" drew around 3.1 million unique visitors during the month of October; 3 million in November; and dropped to 1.8 million for December.
The second place CBS.com was far behind with 1.2 million unique visitors in October; 1.9 million in November; and 1.2 million for December.
Fox (NWS) finished in third for unique streaming viewers with 640,000 in October; 676,000 in November; and finished with 303,000 for December.
The one downside to the survey was that it wouldn't count if they entered through another avenue than the sites URL.
Now the problem with this to me isn't all of the statistics, I think we need to know them to see how streaming video is being accepted and sought after, but the problem is that the assumption of network web sites being the only ones measured with the large amount of other sites out there, implies a world that no longer exists.
There should be inclusion of competitors that are doing the same thing with different products being offered. Otherwise, what is the meaning of measuring prime-time shows that are being offered online? What if other sites are receiving more traffic but aren't being included in the data?
The point is that as far as the online video streaming world, it needs to be measured in contrast to the other players, not just the networks. Otherwise it imputes an importance to them that no longer practically exists online. We need data that shows what a wider sampling of online firms are doing.
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