The ad-free services Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ accounted for nearly half of all time spent with streaming in Q2 2020, according to Nielsen.
The two most popular services with advertising, YouTube and Hulu, feature subscription ad-free tiers, so a portion of viewing on those platforms also happens without ads.
The top five streamers accounted for about three-fourths of all time spent with streaming.
The long tail that makes up the remaining fourth is split between ad-free services (like Apple TV+), ad-reliant services (like Pluto TV), and hybrid services that have ad- supported and ad-free tiers (like Peacock). Read the rest at eMarketer.
Netflix remains the big streamer on the block, with a 34% market share followed by the two ad-supported service YouTube (20%) and Hulu (11%). Amazon Prime comes in at 8% and Disney+ follows with 4%.
Reaching streaming audiences gets tricky with fragmentation continuing as new channels enter the market.
As of now, short of producing your own shows and cutting a deal, Netflix is off limits for most. YouTube and more recently Hulu offer self-serve advertising options for smaller budget advertisers.
While Amazon does accept Over The Top video advertising, like YouTube, you can also upload your own content to the platform as well.
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eMarketer estimates there will be 18.8 million Apple TV+ viewers by the end of 2020.
American Twitch Viewers, 2019-2023
eMarketer forecasts that 37.5 million people in the US will watch streaming video on Twitch at least monthly in 2020, meaning the video streaming platform will reach 15.5% of US digital video viewers this year.
Pandemic Video Streaming By Platform
Business Insider Intelligence surveyed American adults about their video streaming choices while cooped up at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Within the US live viewing comprised more than one-third (35%) of all ad views for the quarter, up from 31% the previous quarter and 24% in the year-earlier period.
The dramatic rise of Netflix and other over-the-top (OTT) video services has fundamentally changed viewing habits in the US, especially among younger users, but in the short run it can be easy to overrate that change.
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