A study conducted by the digital marketing consultancy Sensemakers highlighted some data on and the growth of online video consumption by the Italian audience. The study was carried out by integrating various data sources: Auditel, Comscore’s Audience Analytics, and ad hoc research conducted on online video heavy users, on free and paid platforms, in collaboration with Beyond Research.
According to Agcom estimates on Comscore data, the month of March 2020 recorded a 60% increase in VoD users compared to March 2019, while according to Auditel surveys the number of online video views on the television broadcaster sites it more than doubled both in June and in the first half of July, compared to the same periods of 2019.
The target age 15-24 remains the most active with an average of 35 minutes a day spent on video streaming sites, while families with high schooling and income levels enjoy smart TV. Online videos are viewed on average with three types of devices throughout the day: in the morning, through smartphones, news, sports, music, and tutorials are preferred; in the afternoon, the viewing of series and reality shows; finally, in the evening, smart TV is chosen for long visions focused on films and series. Furthermore, 63% of the sample declares to use a second screen (smartphone) simultaneously with the television viewing.
Among streamers preferences, Netflix with a rating of 8.16; Amazon Prime Video, with a rating of 7.92; YouTube, with a rating of 7.87. Thanks to their scripted offer, the first two represent a new TV designed for family co-viewing, to be added to the “traditional- digital TV”, still heavily used for catch-up mode content streaming.
The study highlighted the emerging of new hybrid AVoD and SVoD models, in light of the increase of the platforms on the market and the new needs to contain expenditure by the public; furthermore, according to the new preferred duration, format and devices, a necessary adaptation of the publishing strategy to repackage linear contents.