Well, YouTube (79%) is the leading online website respondents use to watch video, followed by TV Network Websites (39%), Hulu.com (16%) and iTunes (11%).

As a follow-up, respondents were asked how willing they are to view advertisements when watching Video-over-the-Internet. And while boomers clearly want to see fewer ads than they do with conventional broadcasting, more than two-thirds (68%) say they are willing to view at least some ads online.

Media Companies Banking on Boomers

To be certain, the shift among boomers towards Video-over-the-Internet is a long-term trend that bodes poorly for traditional TV service providers. But what, if anything, are media companies doing to keep up with changing boomer demand?

Well, as it turns out, they're doing plenty.

According to a report in the June 25, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal, several major cable networks and subscription-TV providers are planning to let only paying subscribers watch cable shows on the Web.

Comcast Corp (CMCSA), Time Warner's (TWX) cable division, and DirecTV Group (DTV) all plan to rollout trials of a subscriber-only online service this summer. Comcast said its paid-subscription test will cover 5,000 homes and feature programming from Time Warner's TNT and TBS networks.

The A&E Network and the History Channel, owned by a venture of Walt Disney Co. (DIS), Hearst Inc. and General Electric's (GE) NBC Universal, as well as networks owned by Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI) and Cablevision Systems Corp.'s (CVC) Rainbow Media also plan to participate in Comcast's test, according to the Wall Street Journal report. This test run of a paid TV content model is all part of the television industry's need to preserve revenues and potentially expand the existing cable-TV business's subscription model to the new digital frontier.

As we've seen in the ChangeWave survey, nearly half of respondents say they'd be willing to pay a monthly fee for a video-over-the-Internet subscription, if that subscription provided the same programming currently available on their TV service.

It seems to me that the genie is out of the bottle in terms of free video content on the Web. There is already a ton of free TV content online from traditional broadcast networks that still rely on the old ad revenue model. Plus, the survey showed us that YouTube, Hulu.com and iTunes all are content providers boomers have no qualms about using.

However, if boomers make good on their willingness to start paying for video content delivered via the Web, it could mean a boom for the biggest media firms out there.

I know I'll be watching (pun intended!) to see if boomers — as well as the rest of the public — embrace the pay-for-content model.