24 JAN 2022

USA's Audiences streamed 183 billion minutes last December

In the last week of December 2021, audiences streamed 183 billion minutes, which even eclipsed the amount of time they spent streaming at the weekly height of Covid-driven lockdowns in early 2020 (166 billion minutes), Nielsen revealed.

24 JAN 2022

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In the last week of December 2021, audiences in the United States streamed 183 billion minutes, which even eclipsed the amount of time they spent streaming at the weekly height of Covid-driven lockdowns in early 2020 (166 billion minutes), Nielsen revealed in its latest report.

In total, Americans streamed almost 15 million years’ worth of content in 2021. Despite the myriad options across the streaming landscape, consumers were most drawn to a few stand-outs, some of which simultaneously introduced audiences to content not focused on the United States, such as the “Great British Baking Show,” “Squid Game” and “Luca”.

Across platforms, mystery, drama, reality and children’s programming dominated 2021’s streaming lists. In the original category, “Lucifer” benefits from having 93 episodes available to consumers, which commanded more than 18 billion viewing minutes throughout the year, closely followed by “The Great British Baking Show”.

“Seinfeld’s” move to Netflix is a good example of a program that is attracting new audiences, with 41% aged 34 and younger — too young to have even been alive or watched it when the show first aired on broadcast TV. Today, 80% of the viewers of the 90’s classic “show about nothing” are under the age of 50.

2021 was also the year of breakthrough for international streaming content. With only nine episodes available, Korean series “Squid Game” on Netflix racked up an incredible 13 million-plus viewing minutes among US audiences. The audience for this program skewed younger than the Netflix average, as 37% of viewers were 18-34. “Lucifer” and “The Great British Baking Show” appealed to a very similar streaming audience, with the two programs’ viewership skewing mostly female and evenly split across the 18-34, 35-49, and 50-64 age demographics.

“The unfolding story of streaming remains the most high-stakes and compelling across the media ecosystem, with an increasing amount of choice for consumers. But as we have seen this year, content libraries, bolstered by high-profile originals and popular children’s movies, are critical to gaining viewers’ attention. Penetration is the other driving force, as it allows companies to promote additional content to users to keep them engaged. The dynamics of price (free vs. ad supported) may have an increasing role as more competition enters the fray. Similar to what happened to expanding cable packages, consumer decisions will be made as to which services are retained and which are discontinued or replaced,” said Brian Fuhrer, SVP of Product Strategy and Thought Leadership at Nielsen, and the author of the report.