(cc) by-sa Goldmund100/flickr

OTX Research has just released a report claiming that young people notch up a staggering 23 hours of digital communication every single day! Well, er, that's a slightly odd claim, and clearly not... quite... right...

Basically, they're saying that since kids multi-task, they actually manage almost as many hours of communications as there are hours in the day. It's a slightly strange way of counting - after all, if I Skype my pal for an hour on my iPhone, have I notched up three hours of comms time? (Here's my calculation: 1x Skype hour, 1x iPhone hour, 1x Internet (use of iPhone for,) hour = 3 hours!) I'd say... no.

(cc) by-sa videocrab/flickr

A report by Coda Research Consultancy, released this week, predicts a four-fold rise in VOD viewing by 2015. Whilst the figures they predict are still relatively modest compared to traditional TV viewing (50m hours per day watched over VOD compared to 160m on TV), this does represent a huge shift in the traditionally-growing linear TV market - though some will certainly argue it is a natural progression from linear to on-demand, rather than a decline, since overall content consumption is expected to rise.

It's a pity that the report doesn't delve into the potential for truly of-the-web content to have an impact, assuming that passive consumption will remain the norm. I'd expect that more of a threat to traditional content is the potential for consumers to be more excited by interactive or truly non-linear online TV, rather than a new way of delivering the same straightforward video content.

All of this is predicated on Coda's assumption that Project Canvas will go ahead. Given that the BBC Trust has just begun consulting on the project, this might be early days - but I suspect that other services might fill the vacuum if Canvas didn't go ahead.