Teens watch more than twice as much Netflix as cable TV

Netflix

• Netflix and YouTube rule the daily video consumption of teens, according to a new survey by Piper Jaffray.
• Cable TV has seen a stark decline since 2015, almost being cut in half in terms of time spent by teens.
• This means that about 70% of teen video consumption isn’t served by the traditional TV ad market.

Teens watch more than twice as much Netflix as cable TV, according to a new survey by Piper Jaffray.

In the firm’s semi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens Survey,” Netflix led the pack with 37.6% of teens’ daily video consumption, a figure which has been relatively stable over the past few years. But cable TV continued its decline, falling to 16.4% of time spent — down from 19.5% last survey and from 29.5% in 2015. That means that since 2015, cable’s share of the daily video watching of teens has been nearly cut in half.

Here’s a chart that shows cable’s deterioration since 2015:

Piper Jaffray Though Netflix is the most dominant platform, it’s actually YouTube that has been picking up the drop in cable TV viewership.

“Cable/Sat was the only platform to lose significant ground, which was taken up by YouTube,” Piper Jaffray wrote.

YouTube has steadily increased in teen viewing percentage since 2015, rising from 21.4% to 33.1%. In 2018, YouTube will generate $3.36 billion in US video ad revenue, up 17.1% year-over-year, according to an estimate from Emarketer. (TV will generate around $70 billion.)

Here’s a chart that shows YouTube’s rise since 2015:

Piper Jaffray

None of the other platforms Piper Jaffray looked at in the survey — Hulu (5%), Amazon Prime (3%), and “other streaming” (5%) — saw much change.

The dominance of YouTube and Netflix in the eyes of teens gives a peek at a potential future of video entertainment. Combined they represent 70.7% of teen daily video consumption, and neither is serviced by the traditional TV advertising market, with Netflix shunning ads and YouTube having its own, fundamentally different, method of selling advertising space.