Conviva released its quarterly State of Streaming Report for Q1 2020 today, which revealed large increases in viewership, advertising declines, changes in consumer habits, sudden social leaders on TikTok, and the continued dominance of Roku in connected TV space. The report describes streaming quality details and challenges, as well as which sports teams are leading social media. The report indicated that most of the viewership growth took place in Europe at 70%, as well as the Americas, at 57%. Asia and Africa saw 30% and 25% viewing growth respectively. Viewing habits changed globally, with on-demand content increased 79% over the year, representing a 72% share of total viewing time worldwide. Streaming consumption habits shifted significantly in Q1 2020, particularly in March, during which stay-at-home orders were enforced and live sports events were suspended. Large increases took place throughout the quarter in overall streaming viewing, up 57% globally year over year.
Conviva analyzed more than 12.5 billion ad attempts in Q1 2020 and discovered that 46.3% of all streaming ads were missed opportunities due to unfilled ads or ad failures. There was a 26.95% increase from Q4, mainly due to a reduction in advertising and brand sensitivity to running ads adjacent to tragic COVID-19 news content, as well as an increase in quality errors. Unfilled ads with poor quality directly impact viewer experience as viewers often wait while multiple requests go unfilled. "Companies that are not highly reliant on advertising will record increasing success over the next quarter,” said Bill Demas, CEO of Conviva. “Advertising dollars will likely return to streaming with a vengeance when live sports reemerges this fall."
Although the volume of sports-related social content was down in year over year Q1 2020, sports organizations still saw an increase in engagement. The Premier League scored the greatest increase in engagements per post and engagements per video at 146% and 142%, followed by the NBA with 119% and 126% increases. Conviva also identified which teams outperformed the field in engagements per social video. For example, teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, Cincinnati Reds, Winnipeg Jets, and Orlando City Soccer Club, joined rating juggernaut Dallas Cowboys led sports engagement on TikTok. In the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers took over Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The Pittsburgh Penguins conquered all of the platforms the NHL has.
Roku had a 44% share of globally connected TV viewing time, was the only device to net quality improvements across the board, with video start failures plunging 49%, 37% higher picture quality, buffering improvements of 33%, and 15% faster video start times. As a result, Roku also boosted viewing hours by 55% year over year. Across all devices, global streaming quality continued to improve with a buffering decline of 27%, picture quality up 25%, and 14% fewer video start failures year over year. Mobile reported the most progress with 38% less buffering, 27% higher picture quality, and 13% fewer start failures. Mobile also netted the largest viewing growth year over year in Q1, up 60%, compared to 51% growth for connected TV and just 22% growth for PCs.
Data for Conviva's State of Streaming report was primarily collected from Conviva's proprietary sensor technology currently embedded in three billion streaming video applications, measuring more than 500 million unique viewers watching 150 billion streams per year with 1.5 trillion real-time transactions per day across more than 180 countries. Year-over-year comparisons were normalized at the customer level for accurate representations of industry growth. The advertising data included in the report is based on an analysis of 12.5 billion ad attempts in Q1. This social media data included in this report is based on an analysis of over 15 million posts, 1.7 million videos, and over 2.9 billion engagements across Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.