15 Powerful Video Streaming Statistics for 2020

From cord cutting to streaming on demand content, there’s an abundance of research and statistics available online these days about streaming video. We’ve combed through the latest studies and survey results to find some of the most important data points to help you stay on top of the latest trends for 2020 and beyond.

Here are 15 of the most powerful and eye-opening video streaming statistics to inspire you.

Pay-TV vs Subscription Video On Demand

1.  The top pay-TV providers had a net loss of about 1,740,000 subscribers in Q3 2019. This marked the fifth consecutive quarter of record pay-TV industry net losses.

2.  In the fourth quarter of 2019, Netflix had 61.04 million U.S. subscribers. The subscriber base in the United States accounts for around a third of Netflix’s worldwide streaming subscriber base, which at the end of 2019, stood at 167 million. Statista

3.  For the 76.7% of US consumers who watch streamed and on-demand TV, Netflix is their subscription of choice. 64.1% of US consumers turn to Netflix to stream a wide array of films and TV shows, followed by 39.8% who use Amazon Prime Video. Attest 

4.  The proliferation of on-demand streaming content and the decreasing pressure to watch a program the moment it airs has led to a continued shift in consumer habits. Among content types, video on demand now dominates, up 76% year over year in viewing time and live video has grown 32% over the same time period. Conviva

Changing Viewing Habits

5.  Millennials and Generation Z consume streaming video at an enormous rate. Over 60% of Millennials and Gen Z consumers stream video daily. By comparison, less than 30% of Baby Boomers stream video daily.

6.  In Q3 2019, adults 18+ spent over 33 hours weekly with their television sets, as the TUT (Total Use of Television) reached 33 hours and 47 minutes. TUT includes Live TV + Time-shifted TV as well as TV-connected devices (DVD, Game Console and Internet Connected Device, which would include Smart TV app usage). Live TV was the primary contributor, with 24 hours and 06 minutes. Nielsen

7.  TVs are still the go-to streaming device for viewing OTT video. In a study of viewing behavior across 250 over-the-top (OTT) apps worldwide in Q2 2019 found that 56% of the time spent viewing this content happened on Connected TVs. Less than one-quarter of the streaming happened on mobile. Conviva

8.  YouTube, which 3.0% of Americans turn to as one of their top 3 brands for staying up to date with topics of interest to them, is used by most consumers (26.9%) for less than 30 minutes a day. A relatively small portion of the population – 20.7% – don’t watch YouTube at all on a daily basis, and a whopping 18.2% watch it for more than 3 hours a day. Attest

Live Video Content

9.  Live content commands 27% more minutes of watch time per viewing, equating to nearly 6 additional minutes, at 24.41 minutes on average, for live versus video on demand (with slightly below 18). Live content comes out on top in start time, 57% faster at 3 seconds versus 4.7 for video on demand. Conviva

10. Despite being a U.S.-centric league, NFL drove global spikes in streaming traffic averaging a 4% global lift in peak concurrency on game days throughout Q4 of 2019. At its height, NFL viewership drove large, global spikes of up to 29% on Sunday and 28% on Monday. Conviva

11. When it comes to live streaming video platforms, Twitch continues to dominate its rivals including, YouTube Gaming, Facebook Gaming and Mixer. With over one billion hours watched in January 2020, the Amazon-owned game-streaming site boasts an impressive 73% market share by hours watched in 2019, that’s 20% YoY growth. StreamElements

12. According to Fox Sports, Super Bowl LIV was the most live-streamed Super Bowl in history, delivering an average minute audience of 3.4 million, up +30% over last year (vs. 2.6 million) and up +103% over FOX’s last Super Bowl stream in 2017 (vs. 1.7 million), according to Adobe Analytics. Overall, there was a total of 148.5 million people who watched at least part of the game.

Behind the Streams

13. Our friends at Wowza recently polled broadcasters across the globe on the subject of latency. When asked what the most important user experience factor was for their use case, 35% of broadcasters cited high quality video and 31% said low end-to-end latency. Wowza

14. In their recent developer survey, Bitmovin revealed that H.264/AVC continues to be a pillar of online streaming, taking the top spot for three years in a row as the most used video codec with a 91% usage rate.  In addition, the survey revealed that the single biggest challenge facing developers with digital video is latency with 54% of those polled experiencing issues. Bitmovin

15. Our own recent research conducted in the broadcast community revealed that the top technology challenge currently faced by broadcasters is transitioning to IP. Inside production facilities, this transition still has a way to go – 40% of those polled are not currently using any IP technologies in their facilities.