Report: Take Linear TV Down, Up Online Video

A new report from consultancy Omdia shows a decline in linear TV viewing, online short form and Pay TV VoD over the past year, with the increase in long-running online content and social media viewing.

New research from Omdia reveals that non-linear viewing continues to gain greater dominance in the daily viewing habits of television users in the US, Europe and Australia, with video viewing on the Internet and on social media increasing. at the time of viewing.

the new Cross-platform TV watch time report 2022 It reveals that across all covered markets, the total average daily watch time was 362 minutes per person per day in 2021 (6 hours and 2 minutes), down 0.5% from last year. The decline in linear television, short online video, and pay-on-demand television explains this slight drop in viewership. However, the growth in viewing of long-form online content and videos on social media has offset these declines, resulting in a drop in overall viewership by just two minutes.

Linear TV viewing time decreased in all markets in 2021; The end of restrictions and shutdowns that marked much of 2020 was the main reason, and the continued shift toward on-demand viewing has fueled this.

Rob Moyser, Senior Analyst at Omdia’s Online TV and Video team commented: “In highly developed markets such as the US and UK, 2021 will likely be the last year linear TV dominates non-linear TV viewing. However, based on Platform by platform, linear TV remains somewhat the most popular way to watch TV in the covered markets.”

The online long form has been a key area of ​​growth across all markets, driven largely by online subscription services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+, and the launch of several new OTT services like Discovery+ and Paramount+. In all, long views increased by 8 minutes, to 68 minutes, before 8 minutes of video viewing on social media.

Time spent watching video content on social media platforms increased by 9 minutes in 2021 to an average of 60 minutes per person per day across the nine markets analyzed. TikTok has been prominent in this year’s video growth, as the platform prepares to overtake Facebook in total time spent for the first time in 2022.