Prime Video Secondary to Prime Shipping
HBO Go has Highest Viewership Percentage
Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) released analysis of consumer behavior for US on-demand video services, including Netflix (NFLX), HBO (TWX), and Amazon (AMZN).
CIRP analyzed the viewing patterns for several proprietary programs of these services. In a first for a streaming video service, Transparent won the award for Best TV Series, Musical or Comedy, and Transparent's Jeffrey Tambor won the award for Best Actor in that category, at the 2015 Golden Globes.
CIRP estimates that proprietary program viewership ranges from over 80 percent of HBO Go subscribers who have watched at least one episode of Game of Thrones to less than 40 percent of Amazon Prime members who have watched at least one episode of Transparent (see chart).
Chart 1: Percent of Members That Watch Proprietary Programming, Q4-2014
Since HBO first identifies as a television network, it is no surprise that HBO Go subscribers are the most frequent viewers of their proprietary programming. In contrast, Amazon Prime, which primarily attracts members for two-day shipping, has the lowest percentage viewing proprietary programming, though the Hollywood Foreign Press Association suggests that they are missing some award-winning material.
Since Game of Thrones is also broadcast on the HBO cable network, it is difficult to estimate viewership. Though the streaming-only video providers -- Netflix and Amazon -- do not disclose viewership data, CIRP is able to estimate it based on subscriber and membership numbers and our survey data. Thirty million Netflix members have viewed at least one episode of Orange Is the New Black, the most-watched Netflix program, and 12 million members have viewed every episode. Fourteen million Amazon Prime members have viewed at least one episode of Transparent, its newest and first award-winning program, with 3 million viewing every episode.
The comparisons are rough, since viewer measures for streaming programming differ dramatically from conventional television. These services seek paying members, not advertisers. We can't and don't estimate how many viewers watch a given episode. Instead, we ask consumers how often they watch various programs, including whether they watched only one, a few, or all available episodes. We combine these figures with estimates of membership in each service to estimate more useful member and subscriber penetration figures.
CIRP bases this analysis on our current survey of 500 US subjects who watched on-demand video in the October-December 2014 period.
For additional information, please contact CIRP.