As part of VideoNuze's coverage of the virus's impact on the TV/video industries, we're publishing a series of short interviews with industry thought-leaders. The goal is to have them share relevant details of how their companies are experiencing the virus's impact, to help us all be better informed in our decision-making. Today's interview is with Joe Hirsch, CEO of SpringServe, a leading independent video ad platform. A few key takeaways from the interview: CTV is posting the biggest percentage growth, sports channel viewership is holding up, ad demand is dropping (consistent with IAB research) and publishers are digging into operations to squeeze out every dollar they can.

Read on for the full interview. And also check out our Coronavirus Video Industry Research Hub for more data and insights.

VideoNuze: Which categories of viewing are spiking as people are staying at home?

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Conviva has released new data showing how significantly daytime viewership has surged due to virus-related stay-at-home guidelines. Comparing viewership during the week of March 17-23 to viewership in the 2 weeks immediately preceding, Conviva found increases between 33%-43% in the 10am-5pm window (see chart below). The peak increase of 43% was achieved at 11am.

Early morning hours of 6am-9am also saw a surge of between 14%-33%, while early fringe of 5pm-7pm had increases between 7%-31%. Traditional primetime viewership has been mostly unaffected, with 8pm (+2%), 9pm (-3%) and 10pm (-4%).

The net impact of this is a shift in total viewing per day from the 3 hours of the night primetime daypart to the 7 hour daytime daypart. Conviva said that viewership in the 7 hour daytime daypart March 17-23 comprised 32.3% of total viewing per day (vs. 18.9% in the 3 hours of night primetime) up from 27.1% in the March 3-9 window (vs. 22.4% in night primetime). Note that viewing time per hour is still higher in night primetime.

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Yesterday Comcast shared select network data on how significant changes in consumer behavior have been due to virus-driven stay at home guidelines. Comcast said that since March 1st, peak traffic is up 32% overall, and 60% in some geographies. Peak or “primetime” for downstream traffic has shifted from 9pm to 7pm-8pm and peak time for upstream traffic has changed from 9pm to between 8am-6pm (no doubt reflecting the widespread use of two-way videoconferencing apps, which Comcast said is up 212%).

Comcast noted spikes in specific types of video viewing: streaming (up 38%), VOD (up 25%) and gaming downloads (up 50%). Even linear TV appears to be increasing (up 6% or 4 hours per week, to 64 hours per week). No doubt reflecting our stationary lives, Comcast said that LTE mobile data usage was down 10% while WiFi mobile data usage was up 24% since March 1st. Comcast said that its network is “performing well” and that it is running over 700K speed tests most days.

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The IAB released new research on Friday afternoon indicating connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) video are likely to benefit from ad spending shifts caused by the coronavirus. In a survey of approximately 400 agency and brand decision-makers, 35% of respondents said they anticipate increasing their use of OTT/CTV device targeting, second only to audience targeting (38%), with mobile/tablet (34%) in third place.

Supporting the IAB research, last Friday Beachfront said it has seen a 105% increase in average daily CTV ad requests in March vs. February. Founder Frank Sinton noted that typically only big sports events drive these kinds of bumps in usage. There have been many other reports of surging CTV/OTT usage since stay-at-home guidelines have been implemented.

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