89% of OTT Viewing Takes Place on TV Sets – Nielsen

Nielsen recently announced the results of a study according to which streaming services are becoming more common every day with more than 50% of US households using some type of OTT video service.

Since 2014, it’s been able to track audiences for streaming programming. But with its new SVOD Content Ratings, the company says it will measure viewership of all content.

Nielsen COO Steve Hasker revealed four statistics about viewing habits including Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon Prime:

1. Total U.S. TV consumers (age 18+) are spending an average of 13 hours per month viewing SVOD streaming content.
2. 89.5% of that time is spent viewing on the TV “glass,” and 10.5% on smartphones, tablets and other non-TV devices.
3. Original content on SVOD streaming services, achieve ratings comparable to the most popular series on HBO and Showtime, such as “Game of Thrones.”
4. An estimated 80% of time spent viewing SVOD is to catalog programming.

Hasker said, “These stats are a big deal and they’ve never been made public. It’s a killer fact that 89.5% of time spent viewing streaming services is in the TV glass and not on PC, tablets or smartphones. It’s an interesting reflection on how streaming is done – as a part of and not a replacement for the traditional TV experience.”

He claims that the data is a reminder that consumers prefer the best available screen for OTT viewing — the TV.