Twenty five million U.S. adults participated in streaming watch parties in the past year, according to new research from The Diffusion Group. A watch party is when two or more viewers co-watch synched, on demand video with others outside their homes using any screen connected to the Internet and use social features while watching. TDG surveyed 2,000 U.S. adults over age 18 who use an SVOD service. If under 18 year-olds were surveyed as well the total number of watch party users would no doubt further increase.

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Welcome to the first edition of the new Inside the Stream podcast with Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. After many years of recording together, Colin and I decided it was time for a branding refresh. With Inside the Stream we intend to keep providing an insider’s perspective on the streaming video industry. We’re adding a feature at the beginning of the podcast noting a few important stories that hit our radar. We also intend to bring on more guests to the podcast.

This week we discuss YouTube’s dominance, underscored by Pew’s latest research, showing 81% of U.S. adults use YouTube. Then Colin shares an updated forecast for Disney+ and what it means to the larger Walt Disney company.

Many thanks to our inaugural Inside the Stream sponsor Verizon Media. When you have quality connections at scale, you’re truly connected.

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YouTube is used by 81% of U.S. adults, according to Pew Research Center’s new Social Media Use in 2021 survey. That’s up 8 percentage points from the 73% YouTube usage rate that Pew found in 2019. Among all the other social platforms Pew polled, only Reddit experienced a statistically significant increase in usage from 2019 to 2021, up from 11% to 18%. Facebook is the second-most popular, with 69% usage; all others are below 50%.

YouTube’s dominance over other social platforms spans gender, race, age, income, education and geography. Pew’s data highlights why YouTube has become so attractive to advertisers. For example, YouTube is used by 95% of 18-29 year-olds and 91% of 30-49 year-olds, compared to Facebook’s 70% and 77% respectively. It is used by 90% of those with incomes of $75,000 or higher, compared with Facebook’s 70%. And YouTube is used by 89% of college grads or above, vs. Facebook’s 70%. The only category where other social platforms come a reasonably close second to YouTube is among 18-49 year-olds where Instagram and Snapchat have 71% and 65% usage rates respectively.

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57% of U.S. TV households had either Roku or Amazon Fire TV smart TVs or streaming devices in Q1 ’20, according to survey results in the newest Connected Home report from Hub Entertainment Research. The two companies’ combined share rose from 51% in Q1 ’20.

Among just U.S. homes with a smart TV or streaming device, Roku’s and Amazon’s share was a combined 69%. Of this Roku has a 40% share and Amazon Fire TV has a 29% share. These numbers are very close to those in FreeWheel’s recent Video Marketplace Report, which found the companies with a combined 72% share (Roku with 43% and Amazon with 29%). Hub didn’t report findings for smart TVs and players beyond Roku and Amazon.

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