A new report from Strategy Analytics claims OTT (over-the-top) revenue will double to over $18 billion by 2019.

“North American OTT video spending continues to grow as we go through an era where individuals address their viewing needs through on-demand services across multiple connected devices. Overall, the OTT video market was up 47 per cent totaling $8.9 billion in 2013.”

Fierce Online Video provides more detail:

“Consumer use of subscription video-on-demand services, such as Netflix and Hulu, will be the biggest driver in ‘over-the-top’ video revenues growing 21% this year in North America reaching $10.7 billion.”

Elsewhere, they display nice charts illustrating the dominance of Netflix and Youtube in the SVOD (subscription video) and ad-supported streaming segments.

IMDB quotes Screen Daily to give this some perspective.

“North America revenue from OTT (over the top) content is catching up with theatrical grosses as a study said projected numbers for 2014 will reach $10.7bn – a little under the record $10.9bn set by theatrical distributors in 2013.”

My take: I’m not sure this is evidence that people are turning away from the collective experience and embracing private viewing. Perhaps there’s more interesting stuff on Netflix. Perhaps a night out at the movies is too expensive. Or, is it both?