Sports Dominates Live Streaming

A new report from Parks Associates has found that 43 percent of American internet homes have live-streamed content in the last three months, with sports events more popular than news.

Per the Parks report, Quantified Consumer: Livestreaming: The Next Hot Video Market, 61 percent of live-streaming users recently watched a sports event online, well ahead of the 36 percent who reported to streaming news content online.

“Consumers who subscribe to online sports services or those who subscribe to a premium pay-TV sports package are more likely to live stream,” said Paul Erickson, director of research at Parks Associates. “Right now, sports content is key to drawing and keeping an engaged live-stream viewer base. Even with content that benefits from live consumption—such as news and concerts—significantly fewer consumers are live-streaming this content compared to sports. The sports audience is significantly more engaged in live-streaming as a whole.”

The research also indicates that 78 percent of OTT sports service subscribers have live streamed, as compared with just 25 percent of those who do not subscribe to an OTT sports service. Further, consumers who live stream estimate that live online content comprises close to half of their total online video consumption.

“Offering live-streaming content is an opportunity for services to draw both the highly engaged heavy live-streaming audience and live-stream-centric older audiences,” Erickson said. “Consumers in the higher age brackets can be difficult to target, but live streaming is one option that appeals to them, provided the provider delivers the right content.”