Online TV video viewing keeps on growing and growing. According to Adobe’s “Q1 2014 Video Benchmark Report,” which tracks and analyzes TV Everywhere and non-authenticated online video trends, online TV consumption across all devices hit an all-time high in the first quarter, rising nearly 250 percent year over year.
A new record monthly authentication total for online video views was set in March, while the strongest market share growth was seen in game consoles and OTT devices, which increased 539 percent year over year.
Online video viewing from Apple iOS devices surpassed that for browsers as the most popular means of accessing TV Everywhere content, garnering a 43 percent market share, Adobe highlights. Browsers’ share of online video viewing dropped to 36 percent from 47 percent a year ago.
For its study, Adobe gathered aggregated and anonymous data from more than 1,300 media and entertainment sites, including a total of 151 billion online video starts and 1.3 billion TV Everywhere authentications across 250 pay-TV service providers covering 99 percent of the U.S. population of pay-TV households. TV Everywhere content from 95 TV channels and over 160 TV Everywhere sites and apps was also analyzed.
Commenting on the results, Adobe Primetime Vice President Jeremy Helfand said, “More than one fifth of all pay-TV households in the U.S. now watch TV online across screens. With rapidly rising consumer expectations for TV across devices, the TV industry is moving through a rapid transformation and finding new ways to bring TV to whatever screen audiences want to watch.”
Other highlights of Adobe’s “Q1 2014 Video Benchmark Report” include:
- Access points: With 43 percent market share iOS apps are now the leading access points for watching TV online. Browsers fell behind with a 36 percent share while Android apps garnered 15 percent. Game consoles and OTT devices saw the strongest share growth YoY with 539 percent resulting in a six percent market share.
- Content consumption: TV Everywhere content consumption grew 246 percent YoY, excluding data from the Sochi Olympics, a major TV Everywhere event in Q1. Eighty percent of children’s content was viewed on iOS apps while browsers drove the majority (50 percent) of news-focused videos.
- Reach: Twenty-one percent of pay-TV households in the U.S. accessed TV Everywhere content across devices in Q1 compared to just 16 percent six months ago. Ninety-five TV channels now power more than 160 TV Everywhere sites and apps in the U.S., 30 more channels than six months ago.
- Frequency: The number of unique TV Everywhere visitors to websites and apps per month increased by 157 percent YoY, while the number of TV Everywhere streams (live, VOD and linear) watched per visitor each month increased 133 percent YoY. iOS apps drove 9.2 video streams on average per visitor each month (5.1 videos in Q1 2013) and Android apps came in second with 9.6 streams (3.9 in Q1 2013). Game consoles and OTT devices drove 7.2 streams (2.1 in Q1 2013) while browsers had the lowest number with 5.5 streams per visitor (2.4 in Q1 2013).
- Online video content (non-authenticated) consumption: Using a sample size of over 1300 Adobe Marketing Cloud customers, 35.6 billion online videos including user-generated content were watched worldwide, a new record and a 43 percent increase YoY. Twenty-five percent of all online videos were consumed across smartphones and tablets, a 57 percent YoY increase.
