TV Streaming Across Our Cities

The latest edition of Nielsen’s Local Watch Report, entitled “TV Streaming Across Our Cities,” focuses on the impact that streaming and access to subscription video on-demand services is having on the media landscape, particularly at the market level. With 65% of homes now having access to an enabled internet-connected device or smart TV (and growing), the report dives into video streaming behavior and how it’s affecting local stations, programmers and advertisers.

As of May 2019, 134.2 million (56%) of U.S. adults streamed non-linear video to their TV set through an internet-connected device or smart television. Compared with just two years ago, 40 million more Americans are streaming content to their TV sets. As reach continues to grow, frequency is increasing as well. The average adult now spends 11 days streaming each month (up from nine days in 2017) and they’re spending more minutes per viewing session. The report examines these trends by ethnicity, age and geography to understand the varying impact and growth opportunity for local clients.

Streamers have a huge value proposition—they are younger, and many have children in their homes. They’re also more likely to be college graduates who are employed and earn a higher income than non-streamers. Streamers are also big consumers of local news and seek out local content wherever they are, with 38% streamers accessing local news on social sites vs. 25% non-streamers; 34% streamers listen to local on internet radio vs. 19% non-streamers; 69% streamers access weather on a device vs. 47% non-streamers.  In addition, 82% of adult streamers watch linear broadcast stations, and almost 90% watch linear cable networks.