State of Streaming – Bigger is Better!

The changes to user viewing habits during the Pandemic has led to a new norm in the way of consuming content. More viewers watch when it’s convenient for them, rather than by following regularly scheduled programming live. Changes have been seen in how people view content too, with big screens dominating as people watch less on smaller, mobile devices.

Time spent streaming saw a global increase year over year in Q1 2021 of 36%.

Growth in viewing time by Region : Q1 2021 vs Q1 2020

The triple digit gains in time spent streaming in multiple regions has been spurred by new streaming providers. In nearly every region, big screens dominated streaming, as connected TV’s and gaming consoles grabbed the attention of viewers.

North America dominated, with a massive 81% share of big screen viewers, with big screens accounting for at least 50% in most regions. On the other end of the scale, Asia captured just 11% of big screen viewing, with mobile and desktops being the preference, at a combined 84% of viewing time.

Looking at the share of viewership on big screen devices, the diversity of preferred devices was very different in the various regions.

Top 5 devices for these regions:

Oceania

Chromecast

Samsung TV

Android TV

Apple TV
PlayStation

Additional devices: Vizio TV, Humax SkyQ, Linux and others.

Overall quality of the viewing experience also increased, with 13% higher picture quality, 5% less video start failures and 5% less buffering time. These improvements result in longer viewing time, seen in an increase of 5% across all regions.

Streaming on big screens accounted for a massive 73% of viewing share in Q1 2021.

The increase in viewers consuming more content, on more devices, at higher quality, will continue to demand that broadcasters efficiently deliver this content in these many forms.

See the full Conviva State of Streaming Q1 2021 Report here

Learn how TMD’s Mediaflex-UMS makes it easy for broadcasters to acquire, manage and deliver more content, in more formats to more devices.

A proven, enterprise content supply chain platform for the media and entertainment business.

Get in touch to find out how Mediaflex can help your business.