Survey: Netflix Tops TV Viewing Habits

19 May, 2016 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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Streaming video on Netflix is twice as popular (33%) as watching live television (16%), according to a new survey from E-Poll market research. Notably, the data — from an online poll of 1,488 respondents aged 13-54 — suggests “baby boomers” (50-54) for the first time are streaming video more often (24%) than watching live TV (21%).

Time-shifted content, which includes recorded fare (15%) trailed in popularity, followed by Hulu and YouTube (7%), online (4%), Amazon Prime Video (3%) and video-on-demand (2%). Another 13% of respondents cited 14 alternative video sources.

“This shows the increasing strength of the Netflix brand as well as streaming in general, and marks a significant change from prior year tracking, when “baby boomers” chose live TV as their preferred viewing source,” read the E-Poll report.   

The findings come as separate data from SNL Kagan estimates cable, satellite and telecom operators lost a combined 162,000 pay-TV customers in the first three months of 2016. In the past 12 months, the decline in video subs dropped about 1.2 million, despite the uptick in occupied households. 

E-Poll found Netflix most popular among young millennials (18-24) at 51%, followed by teens (13-17) at 39%, older millennials (25-34) at 34% and Gen-X (35-54) at 25%.

Top reasons for streaming Netflix included no commercials (69%), on-demand content (66%), price value (58%) and binge-viewing (51%). Free shipping continues to drive Amazon Prime (72%), followed by commercial-free content (37%), on-demand content (34%), price value (30%) and binge-viewing (22%).

Hulu popularity is fueled by on-demand content (54%) followed by economic value (45%) and binge-viewing (39%).

“Binge-viewing is becoming the new norm with nearly half of “baby boomers,” Gen-Xers and the majority of millennials reporting that they binge-watch TV programming weekly,” E-Poll wrote.

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