Commentary

Live Video Is All Over The Place, And Growing

Here’s an amazing stat: According to new data from UBS, 42% of millennials have created a live video. That seems impossible.

There are something like 83 million millennials, according to the U.S. Census. If the stat is correct, that is one great big stack of live videos. I don’t like to quote a statistic and then immediately say, that can’t be right.  But I’m having trouble with that one. What were they live-videoing about?

According to eMarketer’s account, UBS also says 63% have watched a live video, which is not at all surprising, if you count Olympics and other sports telecasts. Though in the stats to follow, it really doesn’t seem sports Web sites show up.   

In eMarketer’s snapshot, the focus was on the trends for live viewership, which had gone down slightly--2% that is--from June 2016 to November.

Most live stream viewers caught it via YouTube as of June, where 21% of the respondents said they had seen a live piece of content.  

But by November, the drift toward Facebook Live was evident-- 17% said they saw live video there, compared to 16% for YouTube.

According to eMarketer, the changes in the stats don’t necessarily indicate what  the ups-and-downs between June and November means. For example, that YouTube is really losing its live chops. It is more likely an indication of how rapidly the market for live video is growing.

Still, it means something. "Facebook's investments in live video are paying off,” noted Paul Verna, eMarketer’s senior analyst Paul Verna. “The data points to a fluid market in which Facebook is emerging as the leader.

It still seems hard to believe-to me, and perhaps only to me--that live video has a future, outside of sports, news, concerts and awards. I could be very wrong about that, and every stat seems to indicate that I am.  

pj@mediapost.com

 
2 comments about "Live Video Is All Over The Place, And Growing".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. brian ring from ring digital llc, January 20, 2017 at 12:42 p.m.

    PJ, what's the time period? That's hugely important. My research is well-documented and performed on a world-class survey platform. It shows that approx 22% of all US Adult Internet Users have viewed a Live Stream on a Social Platform in the month preceding the survey. I also have data on which platforms are most popular. Check it out here -- all data is totally open and available so you can check it yourself. There's a lot of junk B2B research out there that's nothing more than marketing in stat clothing. My stuff isn't like that. It's transparent, well-thought-out and unbiased.

    http://www.slideshare.net/icliptv/live-streaming-on-social-networks-the-state-of-the-market-november-2016

  2. Mike MacLeod from AYTM, January 23, 2017 at 10:34 a.m.

    Our recent study shows results similar to what Brian mentions above.  

    Take a look at the data yourself:

    https://aytm.com/blog/daily-survey-results/live-video-survey/

Next story loading loading..
About the Author

P.J. Bednarski has written for MediaPost since 2012 on media and marketing topics. He can be reached at pj@mediapost.com