Continued growth for streaming TV viewing as smart TV continues rise

The latest quarterly Conviva State of Streaming for Q3 2020 has revealed a 57% year-on-year increase in overall viewing time with the long-awaited return of advertisers and the increasing battle between smart TVs and connected TV devices such as Roku.

Data for the report was primarily collected from Conviva’s proprietary sensor technology currently embedded in three billion streaming video applications, measuring over 500 million unique viewers watching 150 billion streams per year with 1.5 trillion real-time transactions per day across more than 180 countries. Year-on-year comparisons were normalised at the customer level for accurate representations of industry growth. The social data consists of data from over 1360 accounts, over 29 million posts, 4.8 million videos, 183 billion video views and over 41 billion engagements across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

As regards advertising, the study noted that global ad demand was showing signs of recovery while quality was improving. It noted that unlike Q2 2020 when ad demand dropped dramatically due to the pandemic and lack of live sports, Q3 saw a 22% increase in impressions owing to a 14% increase in ad attempts and a 22% decrease in failed ad attempts. Ad quality also improved in Q3, with time spent waiting for ads to buffer down 28%, and an 11% increase in picture quality.

Looking at where streams were consumed, the study found that connected TV devices, such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Chromecast, continued to dominate streaming viewership in Q3 with 55% share of global viewing time. However, for the first time, connected TV devices did not keep pace with overall streaming growth (55% vs 57%), demonstrating what Conviva called “an uncharacteristic falter” in the category.

Conviva attributed the slower growth to more viewers streaming within their TV’s native app rather than via an external device. Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Vizio grew significantly faster than all other devices in Q3, up 200% in viewing time. Given this growth, described as skyrocketing by Conviva, smart TVs nearly doubled share over the past year, up to 14.8% from 7.7% the previous Q3.Roku still remained the market leader among connected TV devices, capturing nearly half of the total connected TV viewing time in the quarter at 47.7% share. Amazon Fire TV finished a distant second with 27.6%.

In a look at how streaming is breaking through in sports, Conviva studied NFL in the US and found that the number of NFL fans watching games via streaming increased 41% year over year. Daytime games saw the largest increase in Q3, up 63%, with nearly 70% of viewing taking place on a big screen. By contrast, primetime games captured a more modest 32% increase in viewing time year over year in Q3 2020. TVs continued to dominate NFL viewing, with TV commanding 67% of all NFL viewing while mobile captured 13% and PC just 6% of NFL viewing time in Q3 2020.

“Streaming has exploded in the past year as illustrated by content like the NFL which saw 41% growth on streaming and remained relatively flat on linear TV,” said Bill Demas, CEO, Conviva commenting on the Conviva State of Streaming for Q3 2020 report. “As a result, we are seeing more investment in streaming services, advertisers shifting to streaming platforms and consumers adopting streaming-enabled devices and TVs at a rapid pace.” Rapid Tv News