A Quarter of People’s TV Time is Spent With Online Streaming, New Study Reveals

It was not that long ago that TV was dominated by channels created solely for the platform. In many ways TV became a mainstay in homes as far as light entertainment was concerned. The turn of the century brought about the rise of TV as an art form in its own right, but not long after that pure TV channels found that they had a new kind of competitor: online streaming services.

This was of course started by Netflix, followed soon by Hulu, which is owned by Disney, and Amazon Prime. YouTube is a slightly different version of the same kind of platform, but it has regardless become a hub for a unique kind of content that can’t really be found anywhere else. Disney revealed its own personal streaming service with Disney+, and it turns out that the use of these various streaming services accounts for about a quarter of total viewing times according to research conducted by Nielsen.

The research is based on data collected from a thousand randomly selected households. While total online streaming comprised about 25% of total TV time, the usage of specific services is quite spread out. Netflix is the clear winner with about 34% of online streaming done on TV coming from this platform. YouTube is also performing strongly in this regard comprising 20% of total streaming watch time, indicating a shift in the way most people watch content on the platform.

Hulu and Amazon Prime have similar market shares, with Hulu getting 11% and Prime getting 8%. Hulu is a lot older than Prime, though, so it is surprising that more people don’t use it on their TVs. Coming in last is Disney+ with 4% of total TV streaming, although it is also the youngest service out of all mentioned which might be a reason for this. Various other streaming services are lumped together to make the remaining 23%.




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