Video streaming is the way of the future for many analysts. Two new research studies show more evidence for this trend.
The first survey from TiVo Research shows that US Millennials favor streaming services over all other forms of content distribution. They also break down the access and content type by generation.
Source: TiVo Research
The first chart shows that Millennials are stronger in all forms of streaming (subscriptions, free, single purchase), while they fall behind in multi channel video programming use. Physical media and the use of over the air distribution is the same for all age groups.
Tivo also looked at what type of content the different generations are consuming.
Source: TiVo Research
The chart shows that the top five content drivers as described by TiVo are responsible for more or less 86% to 91% of the respective generation. Within the five content types there are some clear trends between the generations. For example, watching someone playing a video game that makes up 6% of the videos watched by Millennials, a content that does not even show up for the older generations. Millennials are watching less established video content like TV shows, movies, and sports. On the other hand they watch more music and music videos.
As the generational pyramid starts favoring the Millennials more and more, these trends will cause changes not only in the way content is distributed, but also what type of content is being produced.
Unisphere Research has published a whitepaper looking at the State of CDN (content delivery networks). The survey was sponsored by Akami and Streaming Media. In contrast to the first research study, this survey looked only at employees of the content streaming industry.
The following chart summarizes their findings.
Source: Unisphere Research
As we can see, the professionals in the streaming industry are more diversified when it comes to personal device preference. There are also differences between the USA and Europe, which were covered in the survey. While the most watched content is premium content in this case, the watching of movie episodes is the most favored content segment for this group of professionals.
The last two charts show that linear TV is facing strong competition. While a two third majority already favors time-shifted consumption, almost half of the respondents prefer streamed content even for live material and events.
Given that this survey only addressed video streaming professionals, we should expect a more positive response to streamed content. On the other hand, it may just be a sign of things to come. Home entertainment is becoming so much more than just linear TV. – Norbert Hildebrand
