Streaming Share Of Total TV Viewing Has Leveled Off
- by Wayne Friedman , June 4, 2024
After growing substantially over the last three years, the share of time spent streaming has leveled off for U.S. households -- at 57% in the first quarter of this year, according to Inscape.
In the previous fourth quarter 2023 period it was 58%, according to the TV-video smart TV data company. By way of comparison, streaming share was 45% in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Notably traditional cable/satellite/telco share was essentially flat as well -- at 33%, down one percentage point from the fourth quarter 2023.
TV viewing time accessed by gaming consoles were at 6% in the first quarter of this year-- virtually the same level versus the same first quarter period a year ago. Over the air TV access was at 3%.
Though overall smart TV viewing share is flat, the percentage of viewing-only streamed content (versus linear TV content) is rising: 58% of the total smart TV time viewing goes to streamed programming, up three percentage points from the previous quarter.
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Analyzing a key important piece of linear TV -- live programming (especially sports and news) -- research shows that after periods of rising viewing, there were flattening results for smart TVs, a 24.4% share, down from 25.8% the previous quarter.
Since the second quarter 2022 live, linear TV viewing has climbed from 15.2% a share.
Inscape results were based on linear and streaming TV data from over 23 million opt-in households via Vizio smart TV and other devices.
So how do we explain the huge discrepancy between these findings and what Nielsen is reporting? For one thing, the 57% share of "TV viewing" attributed to streaming by this study is based on ACR sets---yep, millions of them---in a panel which may or may not be representative of all ACR homes. Also, non -ACR set usage---in 10 + million homes without ACR sets as well as non-ACR set usage---there are millions of these--- in ACR homes are not calibrated. Finally, how is linear TV content viewed via apps counted? As streaming? Questions, questions.