What has been dubbed the “streaming wars” in many markets—especially in the US—is more like a skirmish in Canada. Despite the influx of US-based services like Disney+ and Apple TV+ in the past year, and the presence of homegrown services like Bell Media’s Crave nationally and Vidéotron’s Club Illico in Quebec, Netflix is still by far the most popular subscription OTT service in Canada.

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

Even before COVID-19 caused a spike in TV time in Canada, TV continued to be a strong medium of choice. But amid stay-at-home measures, consumers turned to a blend of TV and digital video for long-form content.

After reaching an expected saturation point last year, daily media time in Canada will climb further this year based on our latest forecasts. COVID-19 has driven up demand for media while people are quarantined at home, which will impact our full-year forecast.

Francophones in Canada’s second-most-populated province are slower to adopt new technology, but their time with digital media is growing, and it is almost on par with Anglophones in Canada.

Digital video viewership in Canada is among the highest in the world, driven by high usage of YouTube and Netflix.