Live viewing
of advertising views on all digital media platforms continues to rapidly climb -- with sports content a main reason.
In the first quarter, live viewing comprised 35% of all advertising views,
up from 24% a year ago, and 5% five years ago.
This research comes from FreeWheel, the Comcast-owned video management company, based off of census-level advertising data through the
FreeWheel platform.
Much of this is due to more sports content -- 76% of live viewing ad views come from sporting events; 16% from entertainment programming and 8% from news
content.
Overall, there has been a 77% year-over-year increase in live viewing of ad views, with smartphone live ad views up 171%.
Big sporting events contributed this
year, such as the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl (both on NBC) and CBS/TNT’s NCAA’s March Madness. The Super Bowl's live stream posted a record 2.02 million viewers, the average minute
audience.
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Looking at all streaming advertising views -- clips, full-program episodes, and live airings -- full-episode entertainment programming comprises 53% of all ad views in the U.S., and
35% for live content and 12% from content clips.
Freewheel says 50% of all digital ad views came from the big-screen programming -- OTT (over-the-top) and set-top-box VOD (video-on-demand);
24% from desktop computers; and 27% from smartphones/tablets.