Commentary

Hulu Streamers 62% Female; YouTube 55% Male

According to a new Nielsen Streaming Meter, the measurement specialist is able to give a better look at the overall streaming audience and what they're watching, reports Troy Dreier highlighting Brian Fuhrer, Nielsen senior VP of Product Leadership, praising The Nielsen Streamstreaming Meter, now in around 1,000 U.S. homes that actively use at least 1 connected device.

The first results are in from the Nielsen Streaming Meter, the measurement company's new method of quantifying exactly what and how much streamed content households watch, and how big a role gender plays in viewing. Men and women stream from different services, says early data.

Streaming overall is gender balanced, Nielsen found, but what we watch isn't, says the report. Hulu viewers are 62% female while YouTube viewers are 55% male. The audiences for Netflix and Amazon are more balanced. Perhaps the success of Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale was the reason for Hulu's win with women, Fuhrer suggested.

A quarter of all streaming is done by people under 18-years-old, says the report as YouTube represents nearly half of streaming by people under 18. And Nielsen reports that the device people use for streaming also determines what they're watching: Nielsen found that 55% of Amazon Fire TV viewing is spent on Amazon content. Netflix is equally popular on all devices, while YouTube is stronger on game consoles, says the report.

Looking at all homes, streaming makes up 12% of total TV viewing. Of that streaming time, 48% is spent with Netflix content. That means around 6% of all TV viewing is spent watching Netflix, Fuhrer noted. Fuhrer also presented data on the changing ways U.S. viewers get their video:

  • Streaming video-on-demand (SVOD) services are used by 59% of households (up 11% from the previous year)
  • DVRs by 54% (up 5%)
  • Video game consoles by 43% (down 2%)
  • Multimedia devices (such as Roku boxes and Apple TVs) by 33% (up 24%)
  • Connected TVs by 31% (up 27%)

While DVR use is trending up, Fuhrer notes that DVR use is moving from hardware boxes to cloud storage. Connected TV use is up by a large amount because interfaces are getting easier, he noted.

In the U.S., 62.5% of TV households are internet TV-enabled, says the report, meaning they access a streaming service with a connected device, up from 53% a year ago.

  • Netflix is the most popular SVOD, in 59% of homes with an SVOD subscription
  • Amazon is in 31% of like homes
  • Hulu in 13%

Fuhrer notes that "… the more options you can give consumers with a better experience… the happier they'll be… streaming is definitely no longer an edge case..."

A big gap in Nielsen's numbers is vMVPDs, or skinny bundles, says the report. Watch this space, as the company is just beginning to collect data on these lower-priced pay TV alternatives, Fuhrer concludes.

For the complete report, and more from Streaming Media, please visit here.

1 comment about "Hulu Streamers 62% Female; YouTube 55% Male".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Paul Evans from ChartLocal, November 17, 2017 at 1:15 p.m.

    With only 1,000 meters and those only on one connected device, I find this data to be not only unreliable but more likely a complete shot in the dark. I have a roku in my home and there is no way to tell who is accessing it, my wife, my 17 yr old son or myself. We don't all login and out when using it, we have one login and so do all my neighbors on their devices.

    1,000 metered homes does not extrapolate to the millions of connected homes in America. Leave to Nielson to try to tell us it does. "Men and women stream from different services, says early data." ... LoL no kidding ... Did Fuhrer read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? Jeesh!

Next story loading loading..