Streaming, TV Usage Still Strong Vs. 2019, But Slipping
- by Wayne Friedman , May 12, 2020
Now, two months into COVID-19 disruption, Nielsen says streaming of TV content continues to post nearly double the levels of a year ago -- although declining slightly in the streaming number of minutes over recent weeks.
For the most recent week ending April 27, total streaming minutes among persons two years of age and older amounted to 150.4 billion -- down 11% from four weeks before, when the total was 169.9 billion (April 6).
At the same time, these levels continue to be almost double those of a year ago: Total streaming minutes for persons two years and older --for total day -- came to 84.8 billion for the week ending April 29, 2019 and 75.7 billion for the week ending April 8.
For the most current week, Netflix commands a 33% share of all streaming minutes for persons two years and older for total day, followed by YouTube with 20%; Hulu at 11%, Amazon with 8%, and others at 28%.
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At the same time, Total Use of Television (TUT) -- live TV, time-shifted viewing, DVD Playback, video game console, internet connected TV -- continues to see high usage versus a year ago, although the percentage is down recently.
For the most current week, TUT is down 5% to 21.6% for the week ending May 3 versus the previous week. TUT is down 11% over the past five weeks (from the week ending April 5) and 10% since the beginning of the crisis (week ending March 22).
In the most recent week, the largest declines -- at 7% each -- were among the viewing groups
ages 18-24 (to an 11.5% TUT), 18-34 (14.1% TUT), and 18-49 (17.1% TUT)Live viewing of television -- still the largest viewing source of TV overall -- is down 5% to 13.7%. Younger TV viewers continue to move away from live TV the most, with 18-24 viewers at 10% less to 4.3%; 18-34 viewers dropping 10% to 5.7%; and 18-49 viewers slipping 8% to 8.6%.
It would be elucidating if all TV Usage sources minutes of use were reported, and not just the 150 billion for streaming so as to provide some perspective.
As an example 150.4 billion minutes across a week means an average of 21.5 billion minutes per day. The US has 307.3m people 2+ in TV homes. This means the dasily average is 70 minutes per person per day.
How many minutes per person per day are the other sources?
John, I assume that when Wayne cites TUT for the latest week as 21.6% he is referring to the percent of people watching "TV" per minute across a full 24-hour day. If so, that means that the average person in Nielsen's panel watched 5.18 hours of TV or 311 minutes. Of course, in the case of "TV" as well as streaming, Nielsen has no way of knowing how much of the time the "viewer" was absent from the set/device and/or not looking at the screen.
Very simply...as the days get longer and the temperature gets warmer, more people are enjoying walks, playing in their backyard and eventually, if they are fortunate enough, swimming in their pools. No shock that the viewing time will start to slip down, and yet still significantly greater than year prior.