Streaming Viewership Has Increased by 85% Since March

It’s no secret that the coronavirus pandemic has caused all of us to pay even more attention to streaming services than we have in recent years. Movie theaters aren’t open, TV networks have virtually run out of new content, and there’s not a whole lot for folks to go do outside of their homes. Streaming is one of the only things we’ve got left. As you could probably guess, based solely on observing the situation, people have been streaming more content than ever before.

According to a new research study from MoffettNathanson, streaming minutes have seen a rather dramatic uptick throughout the year. During the 10-week period between March 30th and June 7th, streaming minutes have increased by 85% compared to the same stretch of time in 2019. Part of that can certainly be attributed to the addition of new streaming services, such as Disney+ and HBO Max. However, that only accounts for a portion of the spike. The fact is, quarantine has made streaming more popular than ever.

During that span, 1.48 billion minutes of content were streamed across all major services. The same period of time in 2019 saw 799 million minutes streamed. That’s a difference of nearly a billion minutes from year to year.

These stats come from all of the streaming services that you know and use on a day-to-day basis, each of which has seen significant upticks. Netflix is up 76% from last year. Meanwhile, YouTube is up 96%, Hulu is up 68%, Amazon is up 106%, and all other services it total are about 94%. “Other” is a pretty wide range, but the addition of Disney+ is likely a big reason for the substantial increase there. Disney+ has become one of the most popular services in the country and in other parts of the world, though it didn’t exist during that 10-week period last year.

It will be interesting to see where the numbers go from here. As things start to open back up throughout the country over the coming months, streaming will likely decrease. However, with people getting more used to streaming content, the numbers could still continue above their pace from last year.

Have you noticed an increase in streaming in your house over the last few months? Will you keep streaming once things open back up? Let us know in the comments!