Streaming TV Now Used By 5 Percent of US Households

That's 4.9 million households. Relatively small percentage but relatively big number. JL

Shoshana Wodinsky reports in The Verge:

A lot more households choose to stream their shows instead of watching them on cable. That number has spiked by 58% in the past year. The total number — 4.9 million — is a whole 5% of US households that choose to stream over Wi-Fi-based services. Only 21% of households using these services have a head that’s under 35. Cord cutters spent twice as much time glued to a screen compared to their peers watching cable TV.

We’re seeing a lot more households that choose to stream their favorite shows instead of watching them on cable.

According to newly released analytics from the media pros at Comscore, that number has spiked by 58 percent in the past year. The total number — 4.9 million — is a whole 5 percent of US households that choose to stream over Wi-Fi-based services, without the bells and whistles of traditional paid TV.

Comscore specifically looked at “pure play” systems: streamers that don’t offer their own original shows the same way that other services, like Netflix , Hulu, and Amazon Prime do. Right now, these pure players include Sling, along with DirectTV Now, Playstation Vue, YouTube TV, and others. A full 10 percent of streaming time nationwide came from these services this past April, according to Comscore — a 53 percent spike from the previous year.

But it’s not just the young and tech-savvy generation that’s buying in. According to the analysts, there are more older viewers signing up than ever before — only 21 percent of households using these services have a head that’s under 35. That’s an eight point drop from last year, Comscore says.

If a household has one of these services, Comscore added, they’ll spend nearly half their time streaming programming from it. This past April, each of these households streamed 128 hours of content, on average, which was equal parts from these pure-play services, and on-demand services like Netflix.

Overall, these cord cutters spent twice as much time with their eyes glued to a screen when compared to their peers watching on typical cable TV.