Streaming non confezionato: La visione in streaming va in biblioteca nel 2023

L'anno scorso gli americani hanno trasmesso in streaming contenuti per 21 milioni di anni

The growing bounty of content on streaming services has forever changed TV viewing behavior, with streaming consumption now consistently accounting for the biggest driver of TV usage¹. And while the time we spend with TV is largely flat, our time spent streaming video continues to rise. In 2023, U.S. audiences streamed 21 million years’ worth of video, an incredible 21% increase from the 17 million years worth² they streamed in 2022.

Rispetto al 2022, tuttavia, gli scioperi degli sceneggiatori e degli attori a Hollywood hanno fatto sì che il pubblico avesse a disposizione una quantità significativamente inferiore di nuovi contenuti da guardare per gran parte del 2023. Questo, insieme all'attenzione per la monetizzazione dei contenuti in tutto il panorama dello streaming, ha contribuito a ispirare nuove strategie di distribuzione dei contenuti per mantenere il pubblico impegnato e fedele in mezzo alla gamma di nuove offerte di servizi. Secondo Gracenote, alla fine dello scorso anno il pubblico poteva scegliere tra 90 diversi servizi di streaming, rispetto ai 51 dell'inizio del 2020.

The depth of those services—just under 1 million unique titles worth³—proved vital in 2023, with existing library content becoming instrumental as services carefully rationed the stockpiled originals they had in their arsenals. The environment also inspired new perspectives about content licensing, as titles that were once exclusive to individual platforms began appearing on multiple services—a significant pivot from previous years. Band of Brothers e The Pacific, for example, benefited as a result of this approach, appearing on Nielsen’s U.S. top 10 list the week of Sept. 18, 2023, given their availability on both Max and Netflix.

Diving deeper into streaming viewership trends in 2023, there was no clearer beneficiary of this shift than Suits, which spent a 12-week run in the No. 1 spot on Nielsen’s U.S. top 10 list as a result of its availability on Netflix and Peacock. In total, the program, which originally aired on USA Network from 2011 to 2019, racked up 57.7 billion viewing minutes in 2023—enough to take the crown away from another audience favorite, The Office, which generated 57.1 billion viewing minutes in 2020 amid pandemic-induced lockdowns. NCIS is the other stand-out example of a show with an entirely new life outside of linear TV, landing in the third spot on the acquired list for the year. With its availability on both Netflix and Paramount+, NCIS gained 1.3 million viewing minutes from last year to end 2023 with 39.4 billion minutes.

Unlike the many live-action shows that were affected by the strikes of 2023, an abundance of animation series were not, including Bluy e Cocomelon, which closed the year in the second and fifth spots. Engagement with Bluy, which doubled its viewing time from 2022 to 43.9 billion viewing minutes, was strong enough for it to overtake Cocomelon, which was the top program for kids in 2021 and 2022.

Despite the presence of the writer and actor strikes last year, a handful of originals did come to market, and the U.S. top 10 titles garnered more than 133 billion minutes viewed. The biggest surprise in the list, however, was Ted Lasso, the signature series of Apple TV+ that took the crown as most-watched original program despite the fact that the platform has a smaller relative footprint than the other platforms. Service footprint size notwithstanding, the series benefited from two notable dynamics:

• La preparazione del (presunto) finale di stagione
• L'allungamento progressivo di ogni episodio, da 30 minuti nella prima stagione a 45 minuti nella seconda e a 60 minuti nella terza, con un finale di 76 minuti.

Nella categoria dei film, tra le tendenze dello streaming spiccano due elementi di spicco:

• Moana, released on Disney+ in late 2019, continues to engage audiences, topping all other movies in 2023 with an all-time high of 11.6 billion viewing minutes after landing in the top four spots over the past four years. Since Nielsen began measuring streaming, audiences have watched nearly 80 billion minutes of Moana, which translates to watching the full movie 775 million times.
• Originally released in 2021, Encanto’s appeal with audiences also continued into 2023 with just under 10 billion viewing minutes after topping the movie list in 2022 with 27.4 billion viewing minutes.

Looking to the year ahead, industry sentiment suggests that, even with the Hollywood strikes behind us, audiences will continue to see less new content than we saw in 2022—the likely high water mark for scripted programming. Given the massive library of existing video titles—more than 1.1 million across linear and streaming—combined with evolving distribution strategies, audiences will never find themselves with nothing to watch. That said, however, streaming will remain a dominant option in the U.S., especially as high-profile sporting events, like the recent NFL playoff game between Kansas City Chiefs vs. Miami Dolphins (which attracted 22.8 million live and same day viewers⁴), become exclusive to streaming services.

In mezzo al continuo entusiasmo per lo streaming, tuttavia, è importante notare che lo streaming non è più limitato alla programmazione on-demand. L'ascesa dei distributori virtuali di programmi video multicanale (vMVPD), dei canali televisivi in streaming con pubblicità gratuita (FAST) e delle app che offrono accesso alla programmazione in diretta evidenzia la continua confusione tra TV lineare e TV in streaming. Ad esempio, oltre l'80% delle case che accedono a contenuti televisivi da una connessione Internet guarderà una qualche forma di programmazione lineare nel 2023. La conclusione è che lo schermo televisivo rimane il dispositivo più importante per il coinvolgimento nei media, ma ora è un canale per tutti i contenuti piuttosto che uno schermo per la programmazione di un canale specifico.

Want more insights into the time viewers spend watching streaming video content? Check out Nielsen’s Valutazioni dei contenuti in streaming.

Fonti

1. The Gauge: Streaming usage accounted for more than one-third of total TV usage in February 2023 and has remained above 35% since May 2023.
2. Esclude lo streaming lineare (televisione in diretta vista tramite app).
3. Dati video globali Gracenote; October 2023.
4. Panel televisivo nazionale Nielsen.