One minute of video is worth 1.8 million words (Forrester)
Unsourced Confidence: medium
No primary data found; the trail ends in a roundup, a disowned quote or a circular citation.
- Commonly cited as
- "Forrester: 1 minute of video = 1.8 million words"
- True origin
- Attributed to James McQuivey (Forrester Research), 'How Video Will Take Over The World' (not public; we could not open it) — Arithmetic on 'a picture is worth a thousand words'
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- Undated (attributed Forrester report)
- Data as of
- Date of the attributed report not verified
- Last checked
- What the source says
This figure is then multiplied by the 30 frames per second. We now have 30,000 words. Multiple that 30,000 words by 60 seconds and you get 1.8 million words.
- Method & sample
- No data: 1,000 words per picture × 30 frames × 60 seconds = 1.8 million.
- Drift between quote and source
- Type: a figure of speech presented as research
- Source: the Forrester report is not public; we could only open secondary explanations
- Interest
- n/a
Safe rephrasing
The '1.8 million words' line is arithmetic on the proverb 'a picture is worth a thousand words', not a measurement; don't cite it as data.
Sources we opened
Machine-readable: /api/claims/1-minute-video-1-8-million-words.json · Last checked 2026-10-16