Our forecast for digital video viewers in Canada highlights greater consumption of the medium during the pandemic.

Digital video viewership in the UK will continue to rise this year. The pandemic has provided a particularly significant impetus for subscription video-on-demand services, while connected TVs have become the consumption device of choice.

On today's episode, we discuss how Spotify did in Q1, what to make of its new subscriptions for podcasts, and how we expect audio consumption habits to change this year. We then talk about why people still listen to the radio and best practices for voice ads. Tune in to the discussion with eMarketer forecasting analyst at Insider Intelligence Peter Vahle.

Digital video viewership, time spent with the medium, and video ad spending are all reaching new heights in Canada.

The consumption of at-home media and entertainment thrived amid the coronavirus pandemic, but the total shutdown of live events and the pause on film and TV production will cause digital ad spending to decline in 2020.

Today’s kids are more digital than previous generations at the same age. But, while digital video is certainly an important part of kids’ media diet, we estimate that just over half of those ages 11 and younger (52.4%) will be digital video viewers this year. TV penetration is still much higher (close to nine in 10), although time spent is declining.

As a result, in 2021, CTV devices will account for nearly half (48.1%) of digital video consumption time among US adults, surpassing half (50.7%) by 2023. That growth has been stark: Just five years ago, CTV’s share of digital video usage was still 25.6%, while mobile captured 41.6%.

By the end of 2023, that share will grow to 39.0%, with adults watching digital videos for 1:52 daily. Almost a third (32.8%) of digital media time will go toward digital video viewing this year. Digital Video Choices Have Expanded. The increased consumption of digital video is certainly because people are spending more time at home during the pandemic.

Consumption of digital video is booming. The number of new formats and innovative content has flourished. And traditional broadcasters are experimenting with digital channels to keep pace with the changing user behavior.

The only major deviation is the spike in digital video consumption. Adults in South Korea increased their time spent with digital video by 10.9% last year, and we project 9.3% growth this year and 9.1% growth next year. The amount of time that adults devote to watching digital videos each day will increase from 1:16 in 2019 to 1:41 in 2022.

With citywide lockdowns and ongoing social distancing measures in place, people throughout the Asia-Pacific region are spending more time at home consuming all forms of media—especially digital video.

For our recent report on digital video in the UK, Graeme Hutcheson, director of advanced advertising strategy at Sky Media, the company’s advertising sales arm, outlined how the firm is dealing with changing consumption habits of its UK subscriber base and how it’s altering its advertising proposition as a result.

Digital video consumption was more common among younger respondents and the affluent, though these distinctions are diminishing as penetration rises. Despite this, time spent with broadcast TV was still well ahead of time spent with online TV in New Zealand, at 1:56 per day per day and 1:11, respectively. Broadcast TV also claimed more time than social networking, which averaged 1:48 each day.

Meanwhile, paid-for digital video consumption rose considerably. In H1 2020, 68.7% of respondents accessed a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service such as Netflix in the preceding month—a gain of more than 9 percentage points. As in prior years, take-up was stronger among 16- to 34-year-olds and affluents.

Over-the-top (OTT) video consumption leans heavily toward subscription services, as viewers increasingly gravitate away from traditional TV, a medium with high ad loads. There’s every reason to believe that lighter ad loads are still important to OTT video viewers, as people continue to spend time in ad-free services like Netflix.

Digital video consumption was nearly universal among China’s internet users in 2019 and remained so this year, with 95.2% accessing video-on-demand (VOD) services in the previous month. Nearly 92% of respondents listened to digital audio as well. Figures for time spent also highlight the growing popularity of digital video and audio.

Growing interest in smart TVs reflects a modest rise in digital video consumption. More than 94% of internet users polled in Portugal had watched live TV during the prior month in H1 2020. Yet only 41.2% had watched TV shows via a broadcaster’s catch-up service—a decline of 3 percentage points since 2019, but an option used by 63.2% in France and 68.7% in Spain, for example.

In France, total TV and digital video viewing time in 2020 rose by a massive 31 minutes, to 5:01. But while digital video time increased by 8 minutes to surpass the 1-hour mark, TV time increased by 23 minutes to a substantial 3:58.

Altogether, 34.1% of digital video viewers and 40.0% of CTV users will use Fire TV in 2021. More CTV users in the US will use Fire TV than either Apple TV (27.9 million users) or Google Chromecast (31.1 million users) this year. But there will still be more Roku users (109.7 million) and smart TV users (132.0 million) than Fire TV users.

YouTube videos are the most popular media among US children online, with 85% of those surveyed watching that content recently.

Streaming services hit highs and lows at this year’s Emmy Awards: While Netflix and Apple TV+ swept categories and broke records, Paramount+ users struggled to simply watch the event.

In North America, TV is the dominant screen for viewing OTT video content, accounting for 82% of time spent on the activity in Q2 2021.