Now that fall is in the air and we’ve officially kicked off the Back to School season, overall streaming consumption is slowing down. August marked the first time in three months that streaming didn’t see consecutive growth, but instead remained pretty static.
While overall streaming growth for August was flat, streaming time among back-to-school-aged kids 6-17 showed quite a significant drop, decreasing by 7.5%. This can largely be attributed to the growing rates of in-person classrooms as the school season kicked off. Areas like the South where schools had an earlier fall start date contributed the most to the decline in viewership from school-age children.
August and July both saw 28% streaming on Nielsen’s Guage, which had previously seen a 1% increase each month since June, starting at 26% then 27% in July.
Another cause for the stagnant growth in streaming time can be attributed to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics which wrapped up on August 8. Viewers were more likely to tune into Live TV and traditional Pay TV to watch the events.