Conviva’s Latest Streaming Data Shows Advertisers Beginning to Reemerge; Rise of Smart TVs Slows Growth for Connected TV Devices

Conviva, the leader in global streaming media intelligence, released its quarterly State of Streaming report for Q3 2020 today, showing a 57% year over year increase in overall viewing time, continuing the trend of multiple quarters of strong streaming growth. The report also uncovered new streaming trends including the long-awaited return of advertisers and the increasing battle between smart TVs and connected TV devices such as Roku.

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“Streaming has exploded in the past year as illustrated by content like the NFL which saw 41% growth on streaming and remained relatively flat on linear TV,” said Bill Demas, CEO, Conviva. “As a result, we are seeing more investment in streaming services, advertisers shifting to streaming platforms and consumers adopting streaming-enabled devices and TVs at a rapid pace.”

Ad Demand Shows Signs of Recovery While Quality Improves

Unlike Q2 2020 when ad demand dropped dramatically due to the pandemic and lack of live sports, Q3 saw the global reemergence of ad demand, with a 22% increase in impressions owing to a 14% increase in ad attempts and a 22% decrease in failed ad attempts. Ad quality also improved in Q3, with time spent waiting for ads to buffer down 28%, and an 11% increase in picture quality.

Smart TVs on the Rise

Connected TV devices, such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Chromecast, continued to dominate streaming viewership in Q3 with 55% share of global viewing time. However, for the first time, connected TV devices did not keep pace with overall streaming growth (55% vs 57%), demonstrating an uncharacteristic falter in the category.

This slower growth can be attributed to more viewers streaming within their TV’s native app rather than via an external device. In fact, smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Vizio grew significantly faster than all other devices in Q3, up 200% in viewing time. With this skyrocketing growth, smart TVs nearly doubled share over the past year, up to 14.8% from 7.7% the previous Q3.

Roku still remained the market leader among connected TV devices, capturing nearly half of the total connected TV viewing time in the quarter at 47.7% share. Amazon Fire TV finished a distant second with 27.6%.

Sunday Streaming – NFL Tackles Digital

The number of NFL fans watching games via streaming increased 41% year over year. Daytime games saw the largest increase in Q3, up 63%, with nearly 70% of viewing taking place on a big screen. By contrast, primetime games captured a more modest 32% increase in viewing time year over year in Q3 2020.

TVs continue to dominate NFL viewing, with TV commanding 67% of all NFL viewing while mobile captured 13% and PC just 6% of NFL viewing time in Q3 2020.

On social media, North American sports leagues reached a new height in September with total engagements up 252% across the region’s sports leagues including the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, and MLS as compared to their low in June. The two largest players, the NBA and the NFL, tell two stories, with NFL teams able to exceed total engagement levels from January, while NBA teams have not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels of engagement. NFL teams likely fared better during their return as they produced more content in September than any other month during the year, leading them to their most successful month of the year in engagements.

Methodology

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 in excess of 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 social data consists of data from over 1360 accounts, over 29 million posts, 4.8 million videos, 183 billion video views and over 41 billion engagements across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

About Conviva

Conviva is the leader in streaming media intelligence, powered by its real-time platform. More than 250 industry leaders and brands – including CBS, CCTV, DAZN, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Sky, Sling TV, TED, Univision and WarnerMedia – rely on Conviva to maximize their consumer engagement, deliver the quality experiences viewers expect and drive revenue growth. With a global footprint of more than 500 million unique viewers watching 150 billion streams per year across 3 billion applications streaming on devices, Conviva offers streaming providers unmatched scale for continuous video measurement, intelligence and benchmarking across every stream, every screen, every second.

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Contact information

Paula Winkel
510-432-3330
pwinkel@conviva.com