Stuart Thompson, writing in Digital TV Europe, reports that Netflix is now the most popular platform in the US.
He cites a study by Cowen & Co that surveyed 2,500 adults on their favourite viewing platforms:
“27.2% said they used Netflix most often to view video content, ahead of basic cable, cited by 20.4% and broadcast TV, cited by 18.1%. YouTube was cited by 11.4% of respondents, with Hulu some way behind on 5.3% and Amazon Prime Video on 4.7%. Only 4.6% of respondents said they view content most often on premium cable services.”
The results were amplified for 18-34 year-olds:
“39.7% used Netflix most often to view video content, ahead of YouTube on 17%, basic cable on 12.6%, Hulu on 7.6% and broadcast TV on 7.5%. Only 3.4% of 18-34 year-olds reported using Amazon Prime Video most often to view video, with 3.5% using premium cable services most often.”
This begs the question: how much of the Internet pipe does Netflix usage consume?
Luckily Domo has done the research and released the sixth edition of Data Never Sleeps.
They estimate every minute sees 3.1 million GB of traffic with Netflix serving over 97,000 hours of content. That’s per minute, folks!
Sign up for the full report or see the infographics on Entrepreneur.
My take: I think it’s obvious to everyone that streaming has trumped cable. In my mind it boils down to the advantages that the new technology gives viewers over the old technology: liberating options for how, when and where to watch. This shift has opened up opportunities for creatives to become the new who and what to watch. Why remains the same. Curiously, one of the unintended consequences of the dismantling of the gatekeeper empires is that it now falls to viewers to curate the glut of content for themselves. In essence, today everyone is their own programmer. Another unintended consequence: getting addicted to shows and binging on them for hours on end. Where are the video playlists?