• by Wayne Friedman , March 31, 2020

Premium video streaming continues to rise during the COVID-19 pandemic that is now keeping three-quarters of Americans home, with more than 30 states under stay-at-home orders.

Nielsen says the amount of total streaming minutes was up 22% to 156 billion minutes for the week of March 16 week versus the week of March 9 (127.6 billion). This is more than double the growth of the prior week. It is also up from 115 billion streaming minutes for the week of Feb. 24.

Netflix continues have the highest share, at 29%. YouTube is next at 20%, followed by Hulu at 10% and Amazon at 9%.

Another 31% of streaming share comes from other streaming platforms collectively. This includes the likes of Disney+, Tubi, Pluto TV, and Hallmark Movies. Individually, all these services each have less than a 9% share.

Streaming on TVs among homes has steadily increased nearly every week over the past 4 weeks.

Streaming now stands at 23% of all viewing being done on TVs as of the week of March 16 versus 14% for the same week a year ago.

Looking at the week of March 18 a year ago, there was a collective 71.3 billion minutes streamed, with Netflix at a 36% share, followed by YouTube at 19%, Hulu at 15% and Amazon at 7%.

Currently, Netflix’s “Spenser Confidential” is the top streaming show, with 1.25 billion minutes viewed for the week ending March 15. Netflix’s “The Office” is second, with 1.23 billion minutes viewed.