Paramount told The Wall Street Journal that it is working on a feature that will ask users if they are still watching, and shut down the app if no response is received—a fix that may cut down on dead ads, but could also annoy users who leave shows running while doing other tasks.

On today's episode, we discuss which ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services Americans are using, why they're using them, and if these types of viewers are different from those using subscription video-on-demand (SVOD). We then talk about what livestream TV could do to help users sign up at a faster clip, how SVOD players can reduce churn, and what to make of Disney+ considering an ad-supported tier. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Paul Verna.

Rogers Media provides niche OTT offerings—e.g., the Citytv app and Sportsnet Now—but has not publicly stated how many users there are for each app. Our first forecast for Crave, which launched in 2014, estimates that the service will have 6.8 million viewers in 2021.

By comparison, just 28.5% of all CTV users are under 25 years old. Disney isn’t the only popular streaming service to skew toward young people. Just under one-third of YouTube’s total viewers are under 25 years old. Netflix has a similar makeup: Viewers under 25 account for 31.8% of all Netflix viewers.

The pandemic has brought an influx of new users for subscription OTT, live videos, and video games in 2020, but other activities such as social networking, mobile messaging, and digital video haven’t seen the same bump.

By comparison, just 28.5% of all CTV users are under 25 years old. CTV viewers include anyone who watched digital content on a TV screen. OTT viewers include anyone who streamed digital video across all devices. We forecast CTV viewers by age but not OTT viewers by age, which is why streaming service viewers in this section were compared with CTV viewers rather than OTT viewers.

The pandemic led to many upward revisions of our UK digital user forecasts. Some changes (podcast listeners) will be permanent, while others will be temporary (digital gamers). Our social network user numbers, meanwhile, didn’t change much at all.

About two-thirds of the US population are CTV users. Most CTV viewers rely on smart TVs to access streaming services, but it’s common for a single household to own numerous CTV devices. With a few hundred million CTV devices in circulation, it’s become big business to control the interface that people rely on for streaming.

These figures represent increases relative to key metrics such as OTT video service users, digital video viewers, internet users, and the general population. Time spent on AVOD services grew dramatically in 2021. TVision reported that from May 2020 to May 2021, US time spent watching AVOD increased 200%.

Usage. About two-thirds of the US population are monthly CTV users. Young people are more likely than older people to use CTV. Four in 10 US senior citizens are CTV users—whereas CTV usage is about double that, more than 80%, among those ages 25 to 54.

This report reviews our final 2020 numbers and new 2021 forecast for US time spent with media, highlighting pre- and post-pandemic estimates and expectations. Special attention is paid to TV, connected TV, OTT, digital audio, and social media.

eMarketer principal analyst Mark Dolliver, junior analyst Blake Droesch and forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Peter Vahle discuss the implications of TikTok suing the US government, smartphone use while watching TV, a potential new tech agency, Instagram's new "Suggested Posts," the status of cord-cutting, how you can tell the temperature by counting cricket chirps and more.

Roku was the top connected TV (CTV) platform in the US last year with 84.7 million users, according to our estimates. This year, that figure will grow 12.5% to 95.2 million.

Subscription over-the-top (OTT) video services—such as Netflix, Crave (from Bell Media), and Club illico (from Videotron)—are a major component of digital video usage. We forecast that there will be 22.1 million such video users in Canada this year, 1.3 million more than we previously forecast. The number of OTT users grew by 10.6% in 2020, nearly double what we previously forecast.