WebProNews

When it comes to online television, American companies and programs are what we tend to discuss.  Research shows that online television is extremely popular in Europe, however, and so Europeans could drive the next wave of advertising trends.

eMarketer collected data from several different sources, and they account for a wide range of possible outlooks.  The least generous one, which comes from the European Interactive Advertising Association, suggests that "30% of Web users in 10 major European countries were watching TV, film or video online" late last year.

 Low-End Estimate Of Online TV's Popularity In Europe

A step up the scale leads us to statistics from Motorola.  "[A]lready by January 2007 nearly one-half of all broadband users in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK were watching TV on the Web over high-speed connections," according to the company.

Finally, figures from Blinkx "showed that by February 2008 over one-half of UK adults ages 16 and over with Web access said they had watched TV online.  One in five had watched full-length TV shows, movies or sports."

All of these numbers tend to look impressive next to U.S. estimates, and European broadcasters and advertisers are sure to be doing their best to make money from the large audiences.  With so many companies and countries involved, it seems quite possible that they'll hit upon an approach to advertising that will become the online television standard.