As movie and video streaming continue to rise during the coronavirus pandemic, which requires 75% of Americans to stay home, a new poll showing which services consumers have used the most indicated that Netflix has been the most-consumed platform during the outbreak. The increase in consumption partially results from 38% of viewers who admit that the pandemic was a major or minor reason why they purchased the service.
Nielsen says the number of total streaming minutes increased by 22% to 156 billion minutes for the week of 16 March, versus the week of 9 March (127.6 billion). The growth has doubled from the prior week. It is also up from 115 billion streaming minutes for the week of 24 February. Netflix continues to have the highest share, at 29%. YouTube follows it at 20%, Hulu at 10% and Amazon at 9%. 31% of streaming share comes from other streaming platforms collectively, including Disney+, Tubi, Pluto TV, and Hallmark Movies. Individually, all these services each hold less than a 9% share. The number of streaming from TVs at home has increased every week over the past four weeks. Streaming now contributes 23% of all viewing as of the week of March 16 versus 14%, for the same week a year ago. Last year around this time, a collective 71.3 billion minutes were streamed with Netflix at a 36% share, followed by YouTube at 19%, Hulu at 15% and Amazon at 7%. Currently, Netflix’s “Spenser Confidential” is the top streaming show, with 1.25 billion minutes viewed for the week of 15 March. Netflix’s “The Office” is second, with 1.23 billion minutes viewed.
Companies are catering to a captive audience, offering free trials and discounts to attract and retain customers. For instance, ViacomCBS Inc. is offering extended free trials for its CBS All Access and Showtime streaming services, while some television providers are giving their customers free trials of premium cable channels. Three major streaming services, Quibi, HBO Max and Peacock are set to launch this spring, but data shows that they haven’t attracted much subscriber interest yet.