During the keynote at the National Association of Television Program Executives’ Conference, NBC-Universal President Jeff Zucker said that the network has notice a midday bump in online video viewers, and it wants a piece of the action.

“We’re also seeing new forms of media consumption,” said Zucker, “like something our research department calls ‘video snacking’‚Äîa significant spike in online video watching occurring right at lunchtime.”

“As a businessman, I’m not happy about having a whole generation of young employees at their desks checking out the latest cool video on YouTube,” he added, “But as a content provider, this is a pretty exciting development. It suggests a market for video that is getting bigger and bigger.”

In order to get a piece of the video-snacking action, NBC need to remove barriers to viewing. This means:

• Providing bite-sized chunks of video to watch;
• Making video available without requiring plug-ins or software installs that may be prohibited by employers; and
• Getting the video into the channels that people are using, including YouTube.

NBC should realize, too, that so-called video-snacking isn’t limited to work computers. With the growing popularity of portable media players, people are video-snacking wherever and whenever time permits. To get a piece of this action, NBC should make some of its content available as free video podcasts.