• by Wayne Friedman , March 31, 2021

Digital media users doubled the time they spent consuming “social video” of premium streaming content -- up 116% -- when looking at a snapshot of specific month periods in 2020 and 2021, according to Tubular Labs, which measures the audiences of social media platforms.

Social video content -- on YouTube and Facebook -- totaled 932 million consumer minutes in January 2021 versus 432 million minutes in February 2020, according to Tubular Labs.

Content measurement here comes from Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Discovery+, Peacock, Hulu, Starz and CBS All Access (now Paramount+).

The content on social-video platforms isn’t full, long-form TV episode or movies but shorter videos -- movie clips and trailers, promotional material, specific program and movie scenes, and cast interviews, as well as some original content.

The biggest players benefited the most.

Using data from Ampere Analysis, in January, Netflix garnered the most U.S. cross-platform social video unique viewers in January -- at 93.2 million. Disney was next at 21.8 million; Amazon Prime Video, had 19.9 million.

After the top three comes Hulu, at 8.7 million, followed by HBO Max, at 5.3 million; Apple TV+, 4.8 million; Discovery+, 4.2 million; Showtime, 4.1 million; Peacock 3.2 million; and Starz, 2.7 million.

All this relates roughly in proportion to each premium streamer U.S. subscribers in terms of size -- with Netflix at the top of the list at 67.5 million, and Showtime and Starz near the bottom -- 9.9 million and 10 million, respectively.

Much of the young-targeted social-video distribution of premium digital video content follows the composition of audiences: 67% of the top five subscription video on demand [SVOD] platforms’ audiences were between the ages of 13 and 34.