Showing more signs that authentication issues are getting ironed out as pay TV viewers migrate to new platforms, TV Everywhere viewing climbed 102% in the fourth quarter of 2015 versus the year-ago period, according to Adobe Digital Index's latest Digital Video Benchmark Report.
Adobe’s study, based on 3.6 billion TV Everywhere authentications across more than 300 TVE Web sites and apps, also found that “active” TVE users rose 22% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.
On a genre basis, broadcast and cable content (regular episodic content) saw the greatest rate of TVE growth, at 11% year-over-year, versus movies (89%), sports (80%), and teens and toons (61%).
“This is the first time we've seen that, and we think it’s because of some of these fall TV premieres and people waiting to watch when it’s most convenient for them instead of when it broadcasts on the actual cable channel,” Becky Tasker, managing analyst at Adobe Digital Index, said in a statement.
Adobe’s study also looked at device-level trends and found that iOS-based platforms still get the bulk of TVE authentications, but are ceding ground to Roku players and other TV-connected platforms.
iOS enjoyed a 36% share of TVE authentications by access type in Q4 2015, but its share dropped 20% year-over-year. Browser-based TV authentications were flat, at 18%, compared to Android (18%, up 3%) and TV-connected devices (21%, up 16%).
Roku’s TVE share rose 14% QoQ, and Adobe credited that in part to the addition of major broadcast channels to the platform in mid-November 2015.
