Streaming usage continues to rise, but not quite at the rate it was earlier this year. And along with that, better ads are being served up to streaming customers.
As a part of their 2020 “State of Streaming” report, Conviva released some data about the current streaming landscape, and it showed that streaming is still growing overall, but the growth slowed severely in May and June compared to March and April when stay-at-home orders were in place throughout most of the country. This pretty much exactly echoes similar studies comparing spring streaming to summer streaming.
With not as many people watching, the second quarter of 2020 saw a sharp decline in advertising as well. For the second quarter of 2020, ad attempts for streaming services were down 28% globally and 22% in the United States compared to the first quarter. That’s primarily due to a lack of live sports, Conviva says, a highly competitive ad market.
But while fewer ads were placed, it seems the overall quality of ads actually increased. Viewers spent 38% less time waiting for an ad to start in the second quarter compared to the first, and view-initiated ad exits dropped 22%.
It seems coronavirus viewing pushed people back to television viewing as well (which makes sense given the number of people working from home) because the global share of smart television viewing over doubled – 239% – year over year. One of the biggest winners in smart TV viewing was YouTube (the traditional site, not YouTube TV), which saw televisions make up 25% of viewing for Q2 compared to 16% the prior year’s Q2.
This data comes courtesy of Conviva, a media analytics and insights company that has technology embedded in three billion streaming video applications. They measure over 500 million unique viewers and 150 billion streams a year.
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