YouTube, Roku, Smart TVs Still Dominating Pandemic Video-Streaming Trends

Author: David Bloom Source: Forbes

Bigger, smarter TV screens, Roku and YouTube all continued to over-perform in the fourth quarter of 2020, even as the pandemic’s resurgence continued to fuel huge growth worldwide throughout the online-video sector, according to a new study from streaming services provider Conviva.

“Overall streaming consumption has continued to rocket upwards,” according to the report, which was released today. “The time spent streaming spiked 44 percent between Q4 2019 and Q4 2020.”

This surge was spurred by use of smart TVs, up 157 percent year-over-year in viewing hours. That far exceeded growth in use of external streaming devices, where viewing time in the quarter was still up 38 percent.

Regardless, connected-TV streaming devices remain the most-used way for viewers to watch online video, with 49 percent relying on them. Roku, with 31 percent of the streaming-device market, handily led the way over No. 2 Amazon Fire TV platform in the quarter. Roku’s share prices skyrocketed this month after releasing figures on its U.S. market penetration and view times.

Gaming consoles saw the least growth among streaming hardware, up 16 percent in the quarter even as Sony and Microsoft MSFT +0.9% debuted next-generation machines (though admittedly they seemed nigh impossible to find in stores before Christmas).

Among smaller screens, viewership increases were much more modest in the quarter, with mobile phones up just 19 percent, according to the study. Tablets were up 47 percent.

The study further ratifies results found in other studies in the months since the pandemic hit last spring, sending hundreds of millions people into lockdown with lots of time to watch TV, and wanting to do it on the biggest screens with the best user experiences.

Use of video streaming has taken off, particularly on smart TVs and for longer-form programming, after years of explosive growth in short-form video viewing on mobile devices.

The Conviva study also found that though streaming growth has continued worldwide, it was much slower in the established markets of North America and Asia, which were far outstripped by usage increases in Africa (up 224 percent) and South America (up 257 percent).

“In Q4, multiple regions reached new heights while growth in North America reached new lows, dragging down the global trend,” the study said. “As the year came to a close, South America and Africa led the world in growth of viewing time with 3x+ growth in November and December. The global transition to streaming is far from complete as less saturated markets tally astronomical growth and established regions continue steady increases in viewing time.”

New streaming services continue to debut (AMC+ during the quarter, Discovery+ four days after it ended among others) but the real beneficiary of surging audiences has been Alphabet, whose YouTube has been a catch-all across “entertainment, media, brands and sports accounts....making it the lone social platform to tally an increase in audience share across all four categories” of social-video content.

In good news for ad-supported streamers, the study found brands had returned online in the quarter significantly after big drops in the pandemic’s first months.

“Demand surged towards the end of the year with a 34 percent increase in ad attempts and 31 percent increase in ad impressions,” the study said. “While quality issues continue to plague advertisers....the quality of ads that were delivered improved.”

Also problematic: though consumers continue to want shorter ads, ad lengths grew 12 percent in the quarter, to an average 31.5 seconds.

“We witness the industry moving the opposite direction, with more ads running a full minute or more,” according to the study. “Advertisers ignore viewer preferences at their own peril, as the longer the ad, the more viewers will abandon the commercial and subsequent content. As competition mounts and viewer attention wanes, the goal to reduce fatigue and frequency will result in increasingly scarce inventory with which to ensure maximum engagement and monetization of every consumer touchpoint.”

Quality control was an issue particularly for smaller screens during the quarter, the study said. Overall picture quality was up 18 percent for all screens, with improved buffering, start times, and start failures, among other quality measures. But the same couldn’t be said for mobile devices, which had “bumpy quality” during the quarter.

“Mobile phones lagged behind other devices with the worst setbacks in buffering, up 20 percent, and video start failures, up 19 percent, were the only device to experience no improvement in picture quality, and also tallied 5-percent longer start times,” the study said. “Desktop and tablets also both declined in quality, with increases in buffering and longer start times.”

Conviva – which provides cloud-based data, software and services to many big streaming companies – based the study on data it collected from “proprietary sensor technology embedded in 3.3 billion streaming video applications, measuring in excess of 500 million unique viewers watching 180 billion streams per year with 1.5 trillion real-time transactions per day across more than 180 countries.” The company is based in Foster City, Calif.