A year after the peak of the pandemic, worldwide streaming viewing time was up 13% in the second quarter, according to new data from Conviva’s State of Streaming report.
In North America, streaming time was up just 2%. Streaming was down 7% in April.
The increase in streaming was accompanied by an increase in streaming quality and the quality of streaming ads.
Conviva said that only 16% of ad availabilities went unfilled or failed to play as expected, down from 37% in Q1. Viewers spent 31% less time waiting for ads to play. Streaming ad duration increased 3/% to 27 Seconds.
“As the global streaming industry grows and competition becomes even more intense, consumer expectations for a superior streaming experience – premium content, consistent performance and high-quality ad creative – will only continue to rise,” said Keith Zubchevich, CEO, Conviva. “The publishers and advertisers that can meet or exceed these expectations will be rewarded with continued growth, however, failing to address any aspect of the viewing experience could spell disaster.”
Consumers were doing a big share of their streaming on big screens, Conviva found. Connected TV devices, smart TV and gaming consoles accounted for 73% of global viewing time, down 1% from a year ago despite consumers spending less time homebound.
Roku was slightly less dominant with a 31% global share as smart TV makers Samsung, LG, Android and Vizio each increased their share by between 1% and 2%.
“As much of the world begins to open after being hunkered down for over a year, employees return to offices, and people venture out, it could be assumed that streaming might suffer from all of this out-of-home activity, but thus far, that isn’t the case,” the report concludes “In fact, streaming continues to grow all over the world, streaming advertising is not only burgeoning, but also getting better, and companies are investing in social media like never before. Streaming is here to stay.”
Data for Conviva’s State of Streaming report was primarily collected from Conviva’s proprietary sensor technology currently embedded in 3.3 billion streaming video applications, measuring in excess of 500 million unique viewers watching 180 billion streams per year with nearly 2 trillion real-time transactions per day across more than 180 countries.
