HOW ARE SVOD AND AVOD SERVICES PERFORMING DURING THE PANDEMIC?

Viewership for subscription services has gone up by a whopping 417% in the most recent week compared to the first week of March, according to exclusive first-party data collected from Reelgood’s nearly 4 million users, which also indicated that for every 100 click plays for SVOD services in the first week of March, there are now 517 click plays.

Reelgood took a look at playback or streaming activity for SVOD services like Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and Disney+ for the past six weeks to see how things have changed as more US states were put under lockdown due to Covid-19. The company did the same with free ad-supported (AVOD) streaming services like Tubi, Sony Crackle, IMDb TV, Popcornflix, and more.

For every 100 click plays in the beginning of March, there are now 248. In a span of six weeks, viewing activity for free streaming services went up by a solid 148%.

Next, Reelgood pulled data on the share of streaming for every service type: subscription (SVOD), free (AVOD), TV Everywhere, and Rent/Buy (TVOD). Subscription services got the lion’s share here, mostly thanks to Netflix, but it is interesting how big of a share free ad-supported platforms have managed to secure.

In terms of viewership share, looking at playback distribution between SVOD and AVOD, Netflix was the big winner with 33.67% of all SVOD playback from March 2 to April 19. In second place was Prime Video with 23.9%, and Hulu came in third with 19.04%. Meanwhile, Disney+ snagged 6.21%, HBO 3.77%, and Apple TV+ pulled in 0.55%.

Meanwhile, in the world of free streaming, Tubi dominated with more than one quarter share of all AVOD playback for the past seven weeks. Sony Crackle owned 12.04%, IMDb TV 11.45%, Vudu got 9.59%, and Popcornflix came in with a share of 4.47%.

Finally, Reelgood put together another pie chart to determine the viewership share for a selection of free and subscription streaming services.

Netflix is obviously still the go-to streaming platform for most users by a significant margin, snagging more than 42% of all playback from March 16 to April 19. Prime Video is second with 21.91%, Hulu is up next with 17.11%. Disney+ follows with 4.73%. Surprisingly, Tubi came in 5th with 3.68% — a figure that’s more than 2x the share of Apple TV+ and is 30% higher than HBO’s.

“With sports stadiums, concert halls, and movie theaters shuttered for a month — streaming services are the bittersweet beneficiaries of social distancing and sheltering at home,”  observed Dietrich von Behren, Chief Business Officer at Reelgood. “Our unique viewership data reveals increased consumption patterns while also bringing to light the most popular contenders at the moment,”  he added.