Co-viewing streaming apps co-opting younger viewers
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 13 July 2021
Streaming apps have continued on a surging path since the spring of 2020 and are increasingly being launched with co-viewing as well as third-party apps baked in, something that is proving popular with young audiences says a study from Hub Entertainment Research.
Hub research 13 July 2021
The analyst’s third annual Evolution of the TV Set report surveyed 2,519 US consumers. Interviews were conducted in late May and early June 2021. It investigated whether the long-gestating vision of television viewing integrated with social media been delivered by what it called “the digital equivalent of sitting on a couch” and talking about what’s on the TV set. It found that a quarter (23%) of viewers say they have watched via a co-viewing app or service this year, up over 2020 (20%). The vast majority of usage was found to be among young people.

The study also found that there were huge differences in co-viewing by age. Just over two-fifths of viewers age 16-34 say they’ve used a co-viewing app, compared with 23% of those age 35-54 and only 3% of those 55 or older.

Amazon Watch Party (AWP) was found to be the most commonly used co-viewing app (44%) and the next most popular apps were adapted from other uses: Discord, popular among gamers (28%); and Zoom (27%).

Hub noted that AWP showed some interesting differences by demographic, indicating that there was room in the co-viewing space for different services targeting specific markets. Those age 35-54 (57%) were more likely to use AWP than co-viewers age 16-34 (37%), and men (52%) more likely to use AWP than women (31%). Young co-viewers age 16-24 are less than half as likely to say they use AWP than adults 35-54 (24% vs 57%). A third of 16-24s used Discord, compared with a quarter (26%) of older viewers age 35-74.

“Co-viewing apps and services are becoming increasingly important, no doubt driven in part by recent pandemic experiences,” said David Tice, senior consultant to Hub and co-author of the Evolution of the TV Set report. “Content distributors and streaming services that help enable this behaviour will increase their appeal to young adults overall, and in particular young men. This is an important consideration with the advent of fully or partially ad-supported streaming services and the desirability of these key demos to advertisers.”