Not surprisingly Netflix is the largest OTT provider and accounted for 40% of all viewing hours of OTT content. I must admit with all of the hype about Netflix that I thought they would be larger. They were followed by YouTube at 18%, Hulu at 14%, Amazon at 7% and all of the other OTT sources sharing 21%.
When it came to consumer engagement, measured by the amount of time that people watch a given service, the leader is Hulu with the average Hulu household watching over 2.9 hours of their content per day. This was followed by Netflix at 2.2 hours, YouTube at 2.1 hours and Amazon at 2.0 hours per day.
Here are some other interesting statistics generated by the survey:
- 51 million homes in the US watched OTT content this past April. That is 41% of all homes.
- The growth of OTT watching is exploding and only 44 million homes watched OTT in October 2016.
- As you would expect, there is a substantial number of cord-cutters that watch OTT. The types of OTT viewers include 44% that also have a landline cable subscription, 22% that also have a satellite TV subscription, 18% that are pure cord-cutters, and 16% that mix OTT content with free content received through rabbit ears.
- The average home watched OTT content 49 hours in a month. That viewing was spread on average across 15 viewing days – meaning that most homes don’t watch OTT content every day.
- As you would expect, cord-cutters households watch OTT for more hours monthly than other households. For example, cord cutters watched Hulu 37 hours per month while other households watched 29. Cord cutters watched Netflix for 36 hours per month compared to 27 hours for other households.
- OTT viewing largely matches regular TV viewing in that there is a big spike of viewing in the evening prime time hours.
- However, OTT viewing differs from traditional cable with big spikes on weekends, largely due to binge-watching.
- The survey shows that 10.1 million households use network TV apps (apps from a programmer such as HBO or ESPN).
- There is an interesting correlation between the size of a household, the amount of OTT viewing, and whether a family has cut the cord. For cord cutting families, the smaller the size of the household the greater the amount of OTT viewing. But for families that still have a paid-cable subscription it’s reverse.
- Single-member households are almost 50% more likely than average to be a cord cutter and 24% more likely than average to be a cord-never.
- Cost of cable subscriptions have always been shown in other surveys as a factor in cord cutting. This survey shows a strong correlation between income and cord-cutting. The survey shows that hourseholds making less than $40,000 per year are cutting the cord at 19% more than average while households making between $75,000 and $100,000 are at 87% of average.
- Their survey also was able to detail the devices used to watch OTT content on television screens. Of the 51 million homes that watched OTT in April, 38 million homes used a streaming stick / box like Roku, and 28 million homes used a smart TV.
- The study also detailed penetration rates of streaming boxes / sticks for homes using WiFI: 16% own a Roku, 14% have Amazon Fire; 8% own Google hrome and 6% have AppleTV.
- Samsung and Vizio are the big players in the smart TV market with shares in WiFi-connected homes of 33% and 30%. LG and Sony were next with 10% and 7% penetration with all other manufactures sharing the remaining 20% of the market.
The survey also analyzed Skinny bundles. They show that 3.1 million homes now have a skinny bundle. 2 million of those homes have SlingTV, with DirecTV Now and PlayStation Vue having most of the other customers. The survey shows that homes with one of these services watch the skinny bundle an average of 5.3 hours per day.
The main takeaway from this survey is a demonstration that OTT viewing has become mainstream behavior. OTT viewing is now part of the viewing habits of a little over half the of homes in the nation that have an in-home WiFi connection.