The market for professional, mass-marketed video over broadband is expected to grow from $423 million last year to almost $5.8 billion next year, according to a recent report.

iSuppli released results of its "Internet TV: Revenue and Network Demands for Online News, Sports and Entertainment Video," report Monday. It is the market research company's latest in a series of recent reports on Internet television. It covers mass market ad-supported content, including professionally produced snacks (clips under 10 minutes), episodes, and features, delivered by Unicast streaming or downloaded over broadband connections.

The report characterizes Internet television as one of the most disruptive changes in decades, challenging content owners and distributors to balance reach against control and turning the Web into the world's largest on-demand, interactive video library.

"The Internet is also evolving into the most ubiquitous video distribution platform ever known," iSuppli said in a statement. "While the early market for Internet TV delivered to PCs has created growth and excitement, the real disruptive opportunity is yet to come. As more consumer electronic devices like TVs, DVD players, game consoles, iPods, and portable gadgets become Web-connected, Internet TV will leap from computer screens into the consumer's primary media environment: the living room TV."

News dominates Internet video because it is easily consumed in bite-sized "snacks" on PCs, but sports and entertainment will take over as Internet connections are established in living room television sets and digital transitions drive an installed base of new set-top boxes, iSuppli said. That will increase bandwidth required for Internet TV by more than 44 times from 2006 to 2011, and threaten "walled gardens," iSuppli said. News will fall to third place by 2009, from first in 2006, as the advertising draw for professionally generated Internet TV, with sports and entertainment leapfrogging ahead, the report found.