• Comcast: TV Viewing Up As Daily Patterns Blur During Pandemic

    Comcast shared a few data points that echoed other recent research, revealing that TV and streaming are up during the pandemic, and also that daily viewing patterns are blurring. Comcast said that since early March, daily viewership is up over 8 hours per week per household, or 14%, from approximately 57 hours per week per household to 66 hours per week per household.

    Distribution of viewership has also changed. Comcast noted that whereas weekends are typically more popular days to watch TV, viewing has shifted to weekdays. In the past couple of weeks Monday viewing has surpassed Saturday viewing.

    Comcast saw a 40% increase in late-night viewing between 11pm and 2am and a 6% decrease in early morning viewing between 6am-8am.

    What’s being watching is yet another change. No surprise, Comcast found a 64% jump year-over-year in news consumption that peaked during the March 30th week. But with 29% share, its still second to Dramas which grew to 30% share, up slightly from 27% a year earlier. Comedy was in third with 18%, followed by Reality (15%) and Action & Adventure (15%).

    Comcast said that in addition to increases in TV viewing, it’s also experienced a 35% jump in streaming video on its network. That’s not as high as the 57% spike in streaming viewing hours Conviva found, though the reporting periods could be different and Conviva’s data is global. Comcast said back on March 31st that peak traffic on its network was up 32% in March, with streaming up 38%.

    For more on how well cable operators’ broadband access networks have performed in delivering the increased video traffic, see this interview I did with Cisco Cable Access CTO and Fellow John Chapman. Last week, Comcast reported in its Q1 ’20 results that it added a record 477K broadband subscribers which was partially offset by a jump in video subscriber losses of 409K.