Viewers are spending more time overall streaming content, and advertisers are flocking to make the switch from pay-TV. In Q3 of this year, viewing time is up 57% year over year according to Conviva’s quarterly State of Streaming report. In addition, ad demand for Q3 is up significantly from the dramatic drop Q2 suffered due to the global coronavirus pandemic and its rippling effects, including lack of live sports. Now Q3 saw a 22% increase in impressions owing to a 14% increase in ad attempts, along with the improvement of ad quality. Buffering time was down 28%, and ads saw an 11% increase in picture quality.
“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.”
The NFL played a big part in ads regaining success, as well as boosting streaming numbers. Streaming views for NFL Games was up 41% year over year, with daytime games seeing a 63% increase, the largest margin in Q3. The report also shows that 70% of NFL fans prefer to watch games on the big screen.
In overall streaming, 55% of global viewership in Q3 was streamed on connected TV devices such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and Chromecast. Roku continued to dominate the market accounting for nearly half of the total CTV viewing time at 47.7%.
As much as CTVs held success, they couldn’t keep up with overall streaming growth with more viewers streaming on their TVs builtin app vs an external device. Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Vizio grew significantly faster than all other devices in Q3, up 200% in viewing time.