The Golden Globe Awards wrapped up earlier this month, and this year’s winners and nominees made one thing clear: streaming video is a creative force to be reckoned with: Amazon, HBO, Hulu, and Netflix had a very good night, nabbing five of the six awards for television series. With streaming video on demand (SVOD) increasingly becoming a dominant force in original television programming – with titles like Stranger Things, Big Little Lies, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Game of Thrones quickly becoming household names – which SVOD service is attracting the most attention from viewers?
Which SVOD service attracts the most viewer attention?
Using Verto Watch data, we looked at the average time spent per user (among U.S. adults, ages 18 and older) over the past three months for HBO, Netflix, and Amazon Video, which offer their original content through a variety of paid subscription plans. For comparison, we also included the same data for YouTube, which is largely known for its free content, accessible without a subscription plan.
Netflix, home of Stranger Things and The Crown, clearly leads the pack: after a slight dip in November, consumers spent just over three hours per month watching content on Netflix in December 2017. In comparison, the average consumer spent less than half that amount of time (1 hour 21 minutes) watching content on Amazon Video, and just 24 minutes watching content on HBO. Of course, free content is still king: the average consumer spent nearly nine hours watching content on YouTube in December. The same trend was also evident throughout the fourth quarter of the year; among the subscription services, Netflix consistently garnered the most consumer time.
This Chart of the Week was created using Verto Watch. Interested in the latest insights on digital content and consumer behavior? Sign up for our newsletter.
