Which are the most popular streaming services in terms of viewership?

Among the top five OTT streaming services, Netflix is ranked first when it comes to viewership and garnered a share of 35.1% in terms of total hours measured across the five platforms in January 2021, according to Comscore’s Total Home Panel. The ranking of the OTT streaming services remained unchanged relative to December 2020. Netflix has been a dominant player amongst streaming services for years, but new services like Disney+ are still able to gain momentum compared to established services.

Among network-based streaming services, ESPN is ranked first and garnered a viewership share of 47.9%, with a sizable lead over other services in this group. Its ranking amongst network OTT services remained unchanged relative to December 2020. Among vMVPD OTT apps, Spectrum is ranked first and garnered a viewership share of 31%, followed by Sling, PlutoTV, Philo and Xfinity Stream. The ranking of these apps in January remained unaffected relative to previous month.

Furthermore, Netflix’s viewing share in January 2021 on Monday among Top Five OTT Streaming services was 35.8%, higher than its average share across all seven days. There is a decline in its share during mid-week (Tuesday-Thursday) followed by an increase over the weekend. YouTube, on the other hand, appears to be performing well during the mid-week. Amazon Video is a strong weekend performer. During the weekend, when consumers have more free time, Amazon Video and Disney+ are the only two streaming services with a share of viewership on both Saturday and Sunday that is higher than their respective average share across all seven days.

Among Network OTT apps, ESPN has higher than its average viewership share on Sunday and Monday, with muted viewing during weekdays. PBS, on the other hand, exhibits the opposite trend – strong performance during the weekdays from Monday to Wednesday. PBS Kids Video and NBC Sports are performing well on weekdays (Tuesday-Thursday and Wednesday-Friday, respectively). However, NBC lack a discernible weekday/weekend trend.

Lastly, among vMVPD OTT apps, Xfinity Stream has higher viewership share on weekend (Saturday-Sunday) and Monday. Sling’s viewing share is highest on Saturday. In general, the variance in viewing share across all these apps could be driven by a multitude of intrinsic (Panel sample size variations) or extrinsic (cannibalizing effect of competitor’s release of new content such as movie premiers) factors.