Regular users watch 10 Netflix shows a week

Regular (monthly) Netflix users in the US have grown even more dependent on the service for viewing TV programming, saying they watch 10 shows per week via the platform – as well as four movies during the same timeframe. For TV content, this represents a doubling of the level (five shows per week) found in the same survey three years ago.

Projected to the full population, this means that the average US consumer ages 13 to 54 watches roughly five TV shows and two movies per week via Netflix using one or more platforms.

The findings come from Over the Top TV 2015: A Complete Video Landscape– the latest study in market and consumer information source GfK’s ongoing The Home Technology Monitor series tracking media technology and services. The new report includes trends from five prior OTT studies conducted since 2010.

Watching via Netflix on mobile devices has also more than doubled in three years, with 24 per cent of regular Netflix users reporting viewing in the past month via one or more mobile platforms – up from 10 per cent three years ago. Monthly viewing on TVs has risen from 36 per cent to 47 per cent among the same group, and watching on PCs (laptop or desktop) has jumped from 17 per cent to 25 per cent.

One-quarter (25 per cent) of regular Netflix users also report ‘binge’ viewing – watching three or more programs in one sitting – either “often” or “all the time.” Bingeing levels are highest among Generation Y (ages 13 to 35), with almost one in three (31 per cent) reporting this behaviour.

“Netflix is a TV ecosystem unto itself, and now an established force in the total TV marketplace,” said David Tice, Senior Vice President of Media and Entertainment at GfK. “But it represents just one aspect of an increasingly complex OTT picture, which also includes subscription services like Amazon Prime and Hulu, delivery systems such as Roku and Apple TV, and threatened incumbents like cable and satellite companies, which are trying to leverage their content with TV Everywhere options. The upshot is that OTT has now gone mainstream, and consumer expectations of control over their viewing experience continue to rise. When today’s teens become breadwinners, they may bypass traditional distribution channels in ways we cannot even imagine now – challenging all of today’s content players to stay up to speed and continue to experiment with delivery innovations.”