Consumers are increasingly watching online video content on their own terms, with on-demand service usage almost diffuse says Limelight’s latest State of Online Video report.
The report is based on a survey that collected data from 1,271 consumers aged 18-69 chosen at random located in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and found fundamentally that the shift in consumer online video viewing habits is changing rapidly.
It found that more than 83% of consumers watched on-demand video, an increase of 4% since April 2015. The percentage of consumers watching four or more hours of on-demand video a week increased to more than 36% as compared with 30% in April 2015.
Among the key millennial group, the greatest jump was with those that watch ten or more hours of video per week, nearly 20% compared with 15% in April 2015, perhaps, said Limelight, a tell-tale sign they are binge-watching more often than their counterparts in different demographics.
A growing number of people were watching on-demand video are doing so on their TV, either through apps on smart TVs or connected devices such as Roku, Apple TV, Xbox One or Sony PS4. This, argued Limelight, was creating a challenge for content providers – ensuring broadcast quality to many devices – as consumers were likely to abandon an on-demand video if the quality was poor.
Millennials were also found to be far more likely to subscribe to over-the-top (OTT) services. More than two-fifths of such people subscribe to at least one service like Netflix and Hulu compared with 32% of older generations. In addition, 31% of millennials subscribe to two or more OTT services as compared with 18% of older counterparts. The Xbox is clearly leading the market for multi-function OTT devices at 28%, followed by Sony’s PS4 at 23% and Apple TV at 16%. The survey also included the new Amazon Fire TV Stick, which achieved 8% of market share, just slightly behind Roku at 11%.
The report also hinted that millennials’ patience with video buffering may be waning. As compared with its April 2015 survey, Limelight found a 35% increase in the number of respondents who would abandon a video after only one buffering event, indicating an erosion of patience for video interruptions.
Content availability was driving this cord-cutting. In its April 2015 report Limelight found most consumers would terminate their pay-TV and cable TV services ‘because the price keeps going up. The December version of the report discovered that this was changing. Access to content — getting the content directly from content owners, live events more prevalent online, and content availability via antenna — is becoming more of a factor than it was in the past.
“The world of online video is anything but predictable,” said Jason Thibeault, senior director of marketing at Limelight. “Even in the few months between our April and December studies, we have seen a significant shift in how people choose to consume content. Organisations trying to take advantage of this changing landscape — from traditional broadcast to online video — must keep in mind how easily things shift as operational and business flexibility is paramount to achieving success.”