COVID-19 Leads to Upsurge in Kids’ Streaming Screen-Time
There’s little question that certain business models are
benefiting from the social-distancing (or outright quarantine)
lifestyle we’ve adopted as COVID-19 continues its onslaught. Streaming
video probably tops that list.
To underscore how things are changing, Reelgood.com—which has had a 49 precent jump in
signups by people using it to find new things to stream—sent us its latest deep
dive into its own data regarding streaming times and how they’ve changed with
coronavirus. In particular how the presence of so many kids at home full-time has had a major impact.
The big reveal is above. Looking back over the first three
months of the year, the daily share of total streams for kids shows and movies stayed
pretty steady… until about March 9. By March 16, there was a 70 percent
jump, where the amount kids were watching more than doubled.
Below you can see the same thing for the month of March
alone, with relative steadiness and highs on the weekend (March 7 and 8) when
kids are home, and all of that blown out of the water since around March 16. By
March 22, the last day for the data provided, kids’ streams accounted for a
full 9.66 percent of daily playback.
Even if you take out the inflated weekend numbers, the increase
for weekday-only kids’ streams is also up 70 percent.
Reelgood included a heat-map showing the monthly hotspots
for viewing, with January, February, and March 2020 all highlighted. Obviously, you still can’t beat prime-time for the most viewing, but check out the subtle
shift during business hours, as more viewing takes place between the
hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. It’s
just a 4 percent increase but a telling one, since it’s unlikely the kids are watching between midnight and 7a.m.
Boiling it down to percentages, business-hour viewing has
gone from 43.21 percent of the time in January to 46.78 percent of the time in March.
Reelgood
also provided its list of the most-watched kids’ content from March 16 to March
22, 2020.
Most Watched Kids’ TV Shows:
5. “Pokemon”
4. “Dragon Ball”
3. “Mighty Med”
2. “Samurai Jack”
1. “Ben 10 Reboot”
Most Watched Kids’ Movies:
5. Incredibles 2
4. Up
3. The Lion King (animated version)
2. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
1. Frozen II
