The amount of viewing to Unidentified viewing – including SVOD, gaming and DVDs – in the UK now stands at 19%, representing a rise to an average 46 minutes per day, according to BARB’s SVOD Report.
The audience researcher says despite the 3 percentage point increase since its previous 12-month survey, the figure still represents a fifth of all viewing.
But the interest in so-called “unidentified viewing”, often the on demand services of Netflix and Amazon Prime, is such that Barb is exploring attaching a measurement device to broadband routers belonging to its panellists.
Periods of bad weather or holidays encourage more unidentified viewing, while it also falls during events such as the World Cup.
Unidentified viewing is more evenly distributed throughout the day, while total TV set viewing is more concentrated in the peak hours. 32% of total TV viewing takes place compared to 40% of unidentified viewing, whereas between 5pm and 11pm, 56% of total TV viewing takes place compared to 51% of unidentified viewing.
According to BARB’s establishment survey, 11.6 million homes in the UK had at least one of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Now TV in Q3 2018, representing a year-on-year increase of 22%. Netflix is the main driver of this increase, having added 2.2 million homes compared to Q3 2017. Amazon too has shown impressive growth, adding more than a million homes, while Now TV has added just under 200,000.
The addition of Netflx to Sky Q has also presented Barb with an increase in unidentified viewing through Sky’s next gen platform.