There’s more than enough discussion across the media industry about the massive growth of streaming, but the ongoing fanfare fails to objectively quantify what is truly happening and the full impact that over-the-top content is having on total TV usage. To remedy that, Nielsen publishes The Gauge, its monthly snapshot of total TV and streaming usage, which equalizes measurement of the time audiences spend with their TV sets. After doing this for one year, the effect of streaming consumption is very clear, especially when we consider that the amount of time spent watching TV hasn’t changed.
Compared with mid-2020, when connected TV usage skyrocketed as people stayed home amid COVID-driven shelter-in-place restrictions, total TV usage has returned to seasonal norms, but streaming has taken a much bigger seat at the table. Between May 2021 and May 2022, streaming usage increased more than 21%. That growth allowed streaming to capture an additional 5.6 share points: streaming accounted for nearly 32% of total TV time in May 2022, up from 26% one year ago.
Dieser Anstieg der mit Streaming verbrachten Zeit geht auf Kosten anderer Optionen, vor allem des Kabels. Im Jahresvergleich sank der Anteil der Kabelfernsehzuschauer um 7,1 %, wodurch der Anteil des Senders an der Fernsehzeit im Mai 2022 gegenüber dem Vorjahr um 2,8 Anteilspunkte zurückging. Im Vergleich dazu ist der Fernsehkonsum relativ stabil geblieben und hat im vergangenen Jahr nur einen vernachlässigbaren Rückgang von 0,8 Prozentpunkten bei der Fernsehzeit zu verzeichnen, was auf einen Rückgang von 3,3 % zurückzuführen ist.
Beneath the surface of aggregate share change by channel, we can see the impact of streaming in greater detail. We can also see that streaming platforms have taken advantage of the seasonal lull in summertime viewing by introducing new titles when there is less competition for audience attention. For example, the release of season 4 of Fremde Dinge racked up more than 5 billion viewing minutes during its opening weekend in the last week of May.
Insgesamt hat jede der sechs Streaming-Plattformen, die in The Gauge namentlich aufgeführt sind (z. B. Netflix, Hulu, Disney+), ihre Nutzung zwischen Mai 2021 und Mai 2022 zweistellig gesteigert.
Andere Mitbringsel:
- Die Nutzung von Disney+ stieg um 39 %, wodurch die Plattform ihren Anteil an der gesamten Fernsehzeit im Laufe des Jahres um 0,5 Prozentpunkte steigern konnte.
- YouTube, which includes YouTube TV, has seen the greatest increase in share, growing by a full point to take second place overall.
- Netflix verzeichnete einen Anstieg des Volumens um 12,7 %, was zu einem Anstieg des Anteils um 0,8 % auf 6,8 % der gesamten Fernsehzeit führte. Netflix behält auch seinen Titel als meistgenutzter Streaming-Dienst.
- Mit einem Anstieg der Nutzung um 20,8 % konnte Amazon einen halben Prozentpunkt hinzugewinnen und erreichte einen Anteil von 2,6 % an der gesamten Fernsehzeit.
In addition, the “other streaming” category, which includes the platforms that have not yet reached the 1% of share threshold to be broken out individually, has grown its share from 8% to 10.5% when we include HBO Max for consistency, and is up 32.4% on an impressions basis over the past year. Much of the growth in this category stems from the proliferation of new services that have come online over the past two years, introducing vast choice that some estimate to exceed 200 services in the U.S. alone. Other big gainers in the “other streaming” category include TubiTV (75% increase in usage) and Peacock (71% increase in usage).
Amid the array of media choice, the past year serves as further evidence that streaming is the future of TV, and audience-first mindsets will be best positioned to engage viewers as connected TV usage grows toward ubiquity. Given the shifts we’ve seen over the past year, it seems likely that this summer may be remembered in the media industry as the summer of streaming—even more so than the pandemic lockdown period.
