• by Wayne Friedman , August 31, 2020

One recent consumer study shows overall use of premium streaming platforms has remained largely unchanged since the COVID-19 pandemic started in mid-March.

Resonate, a Reston, Virginia-based consumer research company, found that 43% of consumers polled said their use of streaming platforms “stayed the same” for the week of July 22 through July 28.  

Previous weeks -- beginning March 22-29 and going backwards, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic -- registered 35.4%; 43.4%; 36.2%; 40.0%; and 51.0% for those results. 

The 43% percentage was much higher than the percentage of consumers who said they either increased or decreased streaming usage.

Those who increased their streaming usage -- characterized by a “small extent,” “moderate extent” or “large extent” -- registered levels of between 16.1% and 18.7% -- more or less the same levels since March 22.

The number of consumers who said they “decreased” streaming usage was much lower -- ranging from 1.2% to 3% -- than those who cited that they "stayed the same" in streaming usage over a four-month period. 

In terms of which streaming TV services consumers are now using more, for the week of July 22 through 28, Netflix had a 39.7% number, followed by Amazon Prime Video with 27.3%; Hulu, 22.3%; Disney+, 18.2%; HBO, 7.8%; Showtime, 4.0%; Pluto, 3.9%; and others, 5.1%.

Resonate’s study was fielded between July 22 and July 28, 2020 to a total of nearly 5,000 respondents. It also fields surveys of about 100,000 total U.S. adults every 6 to 8 weeks, providing more than 13,000 attributes to describe the U.S. online population.