When the World Cup had its memorable run in Qatar, I enjoyed watching the matches like everyone else. But honestly, I was much more focused on the technical aspects of the viewing experience for fans worldwide. That’s because I was leading the product management team at a streaming analytics technology company that works with FIFA and with broadcast companies such as Disney, NBCUniversal and Univision and over-the-top platforms like Hulu. The same will be true this Sunday for Super Bowl LVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. 

Given the magnitude of the Super Bowl and the 11.2 million households that streamed the game last year instead of watching it on traditional broadcast or cable TV, let’s take this opportunity to acknowledge how far live streaming has come, especially for sports. Back in 2000, Fox experimented with an industry first, attempting to “webcast” — as it was called at the time — a college football game between Nebraska and San Jose State. It was a buffering nightmare, which is understandable for an era when households used low-bandwidth dialup modems to connect to the internet. Today, our industry can be proud of how far the streaming experience has advanced in the 20-plus years since then. 

During the World Cup final, we saw a peak number of nearly 22 million concurrent viewing sessions, which more than doubled the 9 million that watched via the internet four years earlier. These numbers represent the tremendous pressure events of this magnitude place on publishers to deliver a seamless viewing experience. Not to mention that NFL games were live-streamed as the World Cup took place, adding complexity to back-end planning for viewer surges that could cause screens to buffer or pixelate. Any sports fan will know that missing even a small part of the action because of a technical glitch is tremendously irritating.

Such an experience — if it had occurred — would’ve been unacceptable during the World Cup. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, and the publishers of the 2022 soccer extravaganza met or exceeded customers’ expectations.  

Super Bowl LVII is also being approached with a customer-centric mindset. Here’s an educational, behind-the-scenes look at how it’s technologically possible to live stream the Big Game and other sporting events to millions of people across multiple device types and models, operating systems, broadcast networks and content delivery networks (CDNs). 

Forecasting Ebbs and Flows (and Surges)

The athletes participating in the Super Bowl have been getting ready for this game for months. It takes a similar commitment and level of preparation to live stream the game to millions of people, ensuring every single one gets the excellent fan experience they expect. Given the complexity and just one chance to get it right, it’s mission-critical to anticipate the unexpected ways things can go off course with a live video stream.

The World Cup spanned 28 days and entailed 20-plus streaming companies. It involved more than six months of planning for expected peak concurrent plays (PCP) and preparing contingencies for anything that could disrupt the viewer experience. Because we’ve been able to leverage those learnings and the work of more than a decade powering the world’s most prestigious live sporting events, our meticulous Super Bowl LVII preparations have been more streamlined, taking just two months.  

The ability to effectively plan for unpredictable events starts with historical data, mainly the Super Bowl streaming viewer data from past years. Data is also incorporated from the recent World Cup. which is a helpful baseline for the Super Bowl. Even though the Big Game is more of a North American phenomenon, they are both global events with high concurrent view rates. Forecasters can ensure they model enough resources to handle the Super Bowl's traffic surges thanks to what they learned from the World Cup.

Streaming partners also input their recent historical traffic data to bolster the modeling. Then, it’s essential to factor in typical internet usage overall during the Super Bowl and how that might impact people’s ability to have the viewing experience they expect.  

Potential surges can be challenging to predict, but this intelligence is essential given that viewership ebbs and flows during a live event. For example, not everyone will begin watching right at the coin flip on Sunday. Several minutes or more may elapse before the peak number of concurrent viewers (PCV) is reached. At halftime, viewership can shift up or down dramatically as people pause or close their player. As the real-time, first-party data comes in from the streaming platforms and our sensors — integrated into each platform’s video player or app — this intelligence informs needed adjustments on the fly to improve the viewing experience. For instance, despite having the best traffic calculations available during the World Cup, we saw ad traffic spike unexpectedly during halftime on a day with relatively low overall traffic. So, we reverted to manual scaling capacity and continued this before each game for the rest of the World Cup. That level of preparation paid dividends during the final match, which pushed many of our subsystems to their limit. We had predicted traffic for the match would be between 18 million and 19 million. In the end, there were almost 22 million viewers! 

These are the types of situations that professionals behind the scenes will be ready to handle this Sunday, improving the Big Game viewing experience in real time. Speed is crucial. If there is buffering or pixelation that will create bad viewer experiences, the broadcaster and its partners have to know about it instantly and fix it quickly. If that vital data does not flow in real time, phone calls are made. It takes a team behind the scenes to keep the viewing experience going without a major hitch.

Validating via Rigorous Testing 

 Long before the game begins, a staggering amount of technology infrastructure needs to be implemented to support a streaming event at the scale of a Super Bowl. Nailing the technology is part art and part science.  

Yet, it’s not enough to build forecasts and fortify infrastructure for live-streaming gigantic media events. Everything must be validated through rigorous testing in environments that simulate the expected real-world conditions. In other words, getting ready to stream the Super Bowl is a data and technology game that involves engineering know-how and technical support from teams that monitor and evaluate critical systems and dashboards well before the national anthem and kickoff. 

Leaving No Stone Unturned 

This industry knows from previous live events that there is no room for error. If an issue or incident occurs, viewers might miss the most exciting moment of the Super Bowl, which will lead to public outcry, switching channels, and even churn. So, leaving no stone unturned ensures that any issue is anticipated and addressed before it becomes apparent to viewers. While fans everywhere enjoy the event, a dedicated team puts weeks of preparation into practice, making certain that nothing comes between the viewers and their enjoyment of every second of the year's biggest game. 

Super Bowl Sunday is practically a national holiday. The millions of fans who take it in over an internet-based channel will see the product of the media and entertainment industry’s advancements over the last two decades and the painstaking work of a dedicated technology plus support team in real time. While the complexity of streaming media continues to grow, what doesn’t change is the massive commitment formidable media and technology companies put forth to get the event right for viewers. And now you, too, will know what happens behind the scenes to make those expectations a reality. ■

Measurement company iSpot said it made a deal with streaming analytics platform Conviva that will enable iSpot to provide ratings for programming and ads that stream on connected TV devices, mobile devices, tablets and computers.

iSpot said it has been working with Conviva since January to integrate Conviva’s data into its next-day cross-platform ratings.

Also: The Front-Runner: How iSpot Became a Favorite To Claim Nielsen’s Measurement Crown

“iSpot and Conviva’s collaboration has shown how to set a new bar for speed, accuracy and completeness,” said Kelly Abcarian, executive VP for measurement and impact, NBCUniversal. “We’re thrilled by the level of partnership for the benefit of the entire industry. ” 

Conviva continues to work with iSpot to deliver de-duplicated content viewership data into iSpot’s Unified Measurement Platform.

Also: Conviva Sees Increase in Streaming for 2Q With Smart TV Use Gaining

“Conviva has proven it can deliver clean, accurate and contextualized streaming data at scale. This collaboration makes it easy for all our network partners to authorize their first-party streaming data for use in our currency products and beyond,” said Emily Wood, VP of business development at iSpot.

iSpot, which has deals in place with several TV networks to provide potential alternative ratings that could be used as currency to buy ad sell advertising, said working with Conviva helps it verify viewership trends at a person and household level.

“As a streaming analytics company, we’re committed to enabling our customers and the broader industry to standardize their data and make it actionable in real time—anywhere and everywhere that delivers value for them,” said Marc Goldstein, head of strategic partnerships for Conviva. “The iSpot platform is a natural destination for that data, and demonstrates both companies’ ongoing commitment to speed, quality, accuracy and transparency.  ■

Streaming television continued to grow in the second quarter, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming Report.

Global streaming time was up 14%. In the more-mature North American market, streaming was up 5% after posting a similar gain in Q1. In Asia, streaming was up 90% and Latin America saw a 70% gain.

The majority of streaming hours are happening on big screens, either via smart TVs or connected devices. Smart TVs — up 31.4% — were the fastest-growing device type globally for the eighth-straight quarter, accounting for 35.3% of global viewing. Connected TV devices handled 34.6% of streaming, up 2.8%.

In North America, 37.6% of viewing comes on smart TVs and 37.6% happens on connected devices.

Among device makers, Roku had the highest share of global streaming at 23.1%. Amazon’s Fire TV followed with 12.1%. Then came Samsung, Android TV, Apple, LG, Android, PCs, Apple TV and Apple tablets.

Roku’s hours were up 3.8%.

In the U.S. Roku’s share was 32.6% to lead the industry. It was followed by Amazon Fire TV, Samsung TV, Apple iPhone and LG TV.

Conviva said streaming video quality showed improvement in some metrics, but degraded in others. Bitrates were up and there was less buffering, but it took longer for videos to start.

Minutes per video play averaged 20.8 globally and 22.3 in North America.

“The race is on to see which publishers will meet these expectations, including providing the best experience when it’s most important. Those that do will quickly eclipse the competition,” Conviva president and CEO Keith Zubchevich said.

“For long-form VOD content watched from the couch, that means improving bit rate,“ Zubchevich said. “For live content, that means decreasing VST and buffering to provide a similar experience to linear TV. For mobile devices, where bitrate is less important, publishers may want to think about optimizing VST and buffering. And as streaming ads become a way of life, optimizing their performance will separate the leaders from the pack.” 

To prepare its report, Conviva analyzed data primarily collected from the company’s proprietary sensor technology, which is currently embedded in 3.3 billion streaming video applications. It measures in excess of 500 million unique viewers watching 180 billion streams per year and nearly 2 trillion real-time transactions per day across more than 180 countries. ■

Streaming grew 10% globally in the first quarter, with consumption continuing to shaft to big screens, particularly smart TVs, according to a new report from Conviva.

Big screens accounted for 77% of viewing, with 34% of big screen viewing taking place on smart TV.

The shift is eating into the connected TV device business, which was down 1%.

Roku remained the most-used device with a 31% share of viewing. Amazon Fire was No. 2 at 16%.

In the U.S., which Conviva termed a mature market, streaming was up 5% in the first quarter.

“Despite recent news of Netflix’s subscriber contraction, streaming continues to grow worldwide, encompassing an ever-growing stable of platforms offering unique and original content,” said Conviva CEO Keith Zubchevich. “In mature markets like the US and Europe, viewers are upscreening from small devices to Smart TVs, setting the foundation for streaming to overtake linear TV on the big screen”.

Conviva said that the quality of streaming picture was better, with buffering down about 2% and video start failure down 17.6%.

After a quarter that saw remarkable advertising delays and increased buffering, streaming advertising bounced back in the first quarter, Conviva said.

Ad impressions were up 18% and ad attempts were up 14%, thanks mostly to big Q1 sporting events like March Madness, the Super Bowl, and the Winter Olympics.

“Live events, especially sports, are a massive driver of streaming, and where there are large audiences, increases in advertising follow,” the report said.

“In another bright spot for streaming advertising, there were significant improvements in ad quality, as well,” Conviva said. “Ad buffering experienced a 17% improvement from Q4 2021. Bitrate increased 16%, missed opportunities were down 12%, and failed attempts were also down 16%. All and all, it was a much better quarter for streaming advertising, both in terms of impressions and quality.”

Conviva’s data is primarily collected using proprietary sensor technology with a global footprint of more than 500 million unique viewers watching 200 billion streams per year across nearly 4 billion applications streaming on devices.

In Conviva’s State of Streaming report, the year-over-year data from Q1 2022 as compared to Q1 2021 was normalized based on Conviva’s customer base. ■

NBCUniversal, which has been vocal in its search for companies to provide media measurement alternatives to Nielsen, said it has certified eight more vendors for audience measurement and audience verification.

NBCU made the announcement in conjunction with its One22 ad tech presentation Tuesday.

The first alternative measurement company certified by NBCU was iSpot.TV. NBCU tested iSpot’s methodology and technology during the first quarter, measuring NBCU programming including the Beijing Winter Olympics and Super Bowl LVI. 

Also: The Front-Runner: How iSpot Became a Favorite To Claim Nielsen’s Measurement Crown

NBCU called the test successful and said that during the 2022 upfront advertisers will be able to use iSpot’s viewership data — which provides ratings for individual ads — to activate cross-platform advanced audience media plans. Buyers will be able to use the iSpot data via OpenAP and other marketplaces.

For now, NBCU will also transact on Nielsen, although NBCU has not named Nielsen one of its certified measurement providers.

“This is a big step forward, but it’s not the only one we need to take,“ said Kelly Abcarian, executive VP, measurement & impact for NBCU’s advertising and partnerships group. ”We must also evolve transactional measurement of unique audiences by building a more modern, interoperable, and expansive measurement framework. One currency, one metric or one company can’t possibly capture all the ways people consume content. Rather, it’s going to take many innovative companies to count it all, measure it all and deliver a complete, unified cross-screen view of the consumer.”

In addition to iSpot, which was certified as a provider of national audience measurement, NBCU certified Comscore for providing local TV measurement and Conviva for streaming and digital audience measurement.

“Given the tremendous growth in streaming over the past 18 months, it is no surprise streaming is becoming a larger, more strategic piece of the publisher market. The critical next step in capturing this market opportunity is census-level streaming audience measurement, and NBC is leading the charge in many ways,” said Keith Zubchevich, CEO of Conviva. “Conviva is thrilled to be a part of NBC’s innovative new audience measurement architecture and continuing to evolve as publisher, advertiser and consumer needs demand.” 

NBU also certified DoubleVerify, Oracle’s Moat and Integral Ad Science for audience verification, iSpot’s ad catalog and FreeWheel and Innovid for verifying ad serving.

Abcarian has led NBCU’s process, which drew proposals from 120 measurement companies.

Also: Ad Industry Seeks Alternatives After Nielsen Loses Seal of Approval

"At this stage of the process, we’ve focused exclusively on Audience Measurement and Audience Verification,” she said. “And, as we head into the Upfront season, we wanted to make it clear that, at this moment in time, we will be transacting against our certified cross-platform partner, iSpot.tv. However, these additional eight certified companies play an important role in the interoperable ecosystem of currency, including streaming viewership capture, ad serving, audience verification and ad catalogs.”

Abcarian said NBCU’s process would be continuing and that it would be dynamic, making sure that new, innovative companies get included and making sure that certified companies keep up with changing consumer behavior.

She said NBCU will announce certification in the impact measurement category by the end of the third quarter of 2022 and business planning by the end of the fourth quarter.

“This is the starting point of an entirely new measurement era,” Abcarian said. “It’s about more than just new technology. It’s about a new beginning. For the first time ever, our advertisers can get a unified cross-screen view that provides a complete picture of their ad’s performance across all screens, in almost real time. And ready for action and transaction — right now,” Abcarian said. ■

Super Bowl LVI was watched by 150 million people on TV and streaming platforms, according to iSpot.TV, a measurement company being used as an alternative to Nielsen by NBCUniversal.

The game had an average minute audience of 121 million viewers, with 56% of U.S. households watching all or some of the telecast on NBC, Telemundo and Peacock.

iSpot's average audience numbers beat Nielsen's calculation of an average audience of 101.1 million viewers. Last year’s game had an average audience of 91.6 million viewers on CBS, according to Nielsen. Adding in viewers on other platforms raised the Nielsen count of the game a year ago to 96.4 million.

Also: Super Bowl Draws More Than 101 Million Viewers: Nielsen

Linear viewership of Super Bowl LVI averaged 98.1 million viewers per minute, according to iSpot, with total in-home reach of 134.5 million on NBCU networks. NBC had 131.6 million viewers and Telemundo added 2.9 million viewers.

Streaming averaged 10.5 million viewers per minute, and 15.5 million total viewers. iSpot worked with Conviva to get sensor level data about connected TV, mobile and tablet consumption.

Also: Men Paid More Attention to Super Bowl Ads Than to the Game: TVision

The out-of-home average audience for the Super Bowl was 12.5 million, as measured by Tunity Analytics, another iSpot partner.

The average Super Bowl ad reached 106 million viewers. The game generated 4.39 billion verified household ad impressions across all platforms in 216 minutes.

Working with iSpot, NBC and its advertisers are getting data about the commercials that usually aren’t available for weeks.

Also: Super Bowl Commercial Prices Increase 5%, SMI Reports

During the game, the commercial attention rate was 36% higher than the average across all networks and shows on Sunday. The commercial completion rate was 98.6%. 

Viewership peaked during the halftime show featuring hip-hop legends Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem, getting a 12% bump.

Ads running during the halftime show generated an average audience of 116.8 million verified impressions for in-home viewing.

Also: NBCU Puts iSpot in Lead as It Evaluates Measurement Companies

The NFL’s animated two-minute commercial during the halftime show had the highest in-home audience, seen by 19 million viewers.

NBC is also broadcasting the Olympics and over the course of all of Sunday, NBCU-owned networks accounted for 69% of all household ad impressions for the day, iSpot.TV said.

Another data company, Samba TV, said that 36 million U.S. households watched the Super Bowl, up 12% from last year. 

“In Q4 of 2021, every one of the top five television programs was an NFL game, and that momentum helped linear TV notch its first ratings increase since 2020,” said Cole Strain, head of measurement for Samba TV. “We saw that same momentum and excitement for the NFL carry over to this year’s match-up between the Rams and the Bengals, with the NFL continuing its ratings winning streak gaining Super Bowl viewership year over year by 12%, reaching 36 million households.”

Samba also found the game’s halftime show to be a big audience draw, watched by 29 million households, up 19% from last year.

“The powerhouse performances from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and 50 Cent rocked the ratings on Sunday night, shattering last year’s halftime audience drawing in millions of more viewers across both linear television and streaming,” said Strain. ■ 

The adoption of streaming by consumers slowed in the fourth quarter of 2021, with just a 1% increase in the fourth quarter, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming report.

Globally, adoption of streaming by consumers grew just 7% year on year, Conviva said.

“Like many other industries, streaming adoption spiked during the pandemic, as people spent more time at home and continually sought the fresh, creative content delivered by streaming publishers,” said Keith Zubchevich, president and CEO, Conviva. “Fortunately, like sweatpants and sourdough, streaming is holding on to the enormous growth it saw over the past eight quarters. The growth rate may be slowing, but the streaming industry is now well established and unlikely to ever go back to prepandemic levels.”

Conviva also found that streamers increasingly using smart TVs to view streaming content. Smart TVs showed a 47% increase in streaming time year over year. Android TV was up 42%, LG grew 36% and Samsung grew 27%. Connected TV devices were down 2%, although Roku was up 12%. Amazon Fire TV was down 7% and Apple TV lost 1%.

Also: Global Streaming Rises 21% in 3Q: Conviva Report

In terms of viewing quality, Conviva found that it took longer for videos to start playing, particularly in Asia and North America. On the other hand, buffering problems were down 22% and bitrates improved by 12%.

Advertising start time grew to 2.6 seconds from just 0.3 seconds a year ago. But there were fewer missed ad opportunities and picture quality improved.

Conviva collected the data for its report using proprietary sensor technology across 500 million viewers who watched 200 billion streams per year using 4 billion applications. ■

Global streaming activity grew 21% in the third quarter, led by a 273% jump in Africa, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming Report.

In North America, where streaming is more established, time spent streaming increased 2%.

Conviva said that big screens accounted for 73% of all streaming viewing time worldwide. That includes streaming on connected TV devices, smart TVs and gaming consoles.

Ad attempts and ad impressions were up over 30% compared to the second quarter. Just 15% of ads in the third quarter were not delivered as intended, for a 23% decrease in missed ad opportunities. Ad duration decreased by 3% from last quarter to 26 seconds, satisfying consumer requests for shorter ad breaks.

Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Samsung TV were the top devices used globally. Roku had a 31.1% share, followed by Amazon Fire with a 16.8% share.

Conviva found that delays caused by buffering have all but disappeared. In all of the regions it measured, buffering was under 1%.

In North America buffering was reduced by 29% from a year ago. It remains the region with the least buffering at 0.19%.

Year over year, picture quality also made gains with bitrate improving in every region, Conviva said.

“Streaming viewing has grown 266% over the past three years, completely transforming the entertainment, publishing and advertising industries,” said Keith Zubchevich, CEO, Conviva. “Topics like quality of experience, advertising measurement and social engagement are now top of mind and the publishers that effectively leverage opportunities to improve in these areas will not only lead the industry in subscribers and viewer satisfaction, but also revenue.”

The report also found streaming publishers investing heavily in video content on social media platforms in Q3 2021 – especially YouTube – in order to test new content and promote their catalog with viewers.

Conviva’s data is primarily collected using proprietary sensor technology with a global footprint of more than 500 million unique viewers watching 180 billion streams per year across nearly 4 billion applications streaming on devices.

Despite the introduction of console upgrades last year to the two biggest video game platforms, Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox, the use of consoles to stream video dropped 14% globally in the second quarter, according to data recently published by Conviva. 

The decline comes amid huge usage increases for smart TVs, which saw their viewing time shoot up 46% over the same period. 

"For years, all devices have recorded global increases in viewing time," the latest Conviva State of Streaming report said, perhaps lending credence to the notion that the data indicates a sea change in how consumers stream video worldwide. 

Notably, the No. 1 manufacturer of smart TVs globally, South Korea's Samsung, is seeing growth in global viewing market share, according to the same report. 

Samsung's smart TV OS, branded "Tizen" in North America, captured 12% of global streaming time in the second quarter, vs. just 10% in the second quarter of 2020. 

Xbox, meanwhile, saw its share decline to 5% from 7%, while PlayStation's share was 6% vs. 7% in the year-ago period. 

Other smart TV makers saw their streaming shares increase, too, including LG and Vizio, while the top two connected TV platforms, Roku and Amazon Fire TV, experienced narrow declines. 

Android TV remains a niche platform, meanwhile, controlling just 5% of global streaming time. 

A year after the peak of the pandemic, worldwide streaming viewing time was up 13% in the second quarter, according to new data from Conviva’s State of Streaming report.

In North America, streaming time was up just 2%. Streaming was down 7% in April.

The increase in streaming was accompanied by an increase in streaming quality and the quality of streaming ads.

Conviva said that only 16% of ad availabilities went unfilled or failed to play as expected, down from 37% in Q1. Viewers spent 31% less time waiting for ads to play. Streaming ad duration increased 3/% to 27 Seconds.

“As the global streaming industry grows and competition becomes even more intense, consumer expectations for a superior streaming experience – premium content, consistent performance and high-quality ad creative – will only continue to rise,” said Keith Zubchevich, CEO, Conviva. “The publishers and advertisers that can meet or exceed these expectations will be rewarded with continued growth, however, failing to address any aspect of the viewing experience could spell disaster.”

Consumers were doing a big share of their streaming on big screens, Conviva found. Connected TV devices, smart TV and gaming consoles accounted for 73% of global viewing time, down 1% from a year ago despite consumers spending less time homebound.

Roku was slightly less dominant with a 31% global share as smart TV makers Samsung, LG, Android and Vizio each increased their share by between 1% and 2%.

“As much of the world begins to open after being hunkered down for over a year, employees return to offices, and people venture out, it could be assumed that streaming might suffer from all of this out-of-home activity, but thus far, that isn’t the case,” the report concludes “In fact, streaming continues to grow all over the world, streaming advertising is not only burgeoning, but also getting better, and companies are investing in social media like never before. Streaming is here to stay.”

Data for Conviva’s State of Streaming report was primarily collected from Conviva’s proprietary sensor technology currently embedded in 3.3 billion streaming video applications, measuring in excess of 500 million unique viewers watching 180 billion streams per year with nearly 2 trillion real-time transactions per day across more than 180 countries.

Streaming has made big strides since the last Olympic games, according to a new report from Conviva.

During the opening ceremony, streaming activity was up 279% compared to the opening ceremony of 2018.

The quality of the streaming experience was also considerably better. There were 35% fewer start failures, 7% less buffering issues and a 1% higher bitrate than average.

Also Read: NBCU Plans Record 7,000 Hours of Olympic Programming

Most of the streaming activity took place on mobile and desktop, with each capturing a 27% share of viewing time. Connected TV devices had a 23% share and 14% were on smart TVs. 

During the games, NBCU will be heavily promoting Peacock, which will be streaming a lot of Olympic content.

“While we don’t know today what the future will hold for sporting events, or how the challenges of the past year will affect the 2022 Beijing Olympics, change is a given as we look towards the next chance to benchmark how dramatically the way people consume media has evolved,” the Conviva report said.

The streaming data for this report was collected from Conviva’s proprietary sensor technology currently embedded in 3.3 billion streaming video applications, analyzing nearly two trillion real-time transactions per day.

With streaming usage surging in regions like Europe and South America during the pandemic, the top U.S. connected TV device platforms, Roku and Amazon Fire TV, have seen their global market share slip.

According to the latest data released by Conviva, Roku saw a 3% drop in global connected TV “big screen” usage in the first quarter of 2021 vs. Q1 2020, and now stands at 30% of the worldwide market. Amazon Fire TV has slipped from 22% to 19% over that same span. 

Conversely, Korean smart TV markers Samsung and LG have seen increased usage in fast-emerging streaming markets—Samsung’s OS market share is up 3 points to 12% in the latest Conviva study, while LG’s usage grew from 4% to 6%.

Also notable: Google’s Android TV usage grew from 2% share to 5%.

While other research companies, including Strategy Analytics, measure streaming platform market share by counting device shipments, Conviva says its “proprietary sensor technology” is embedded into 3.3 billion streaming app downloads globally, “measuring in excess of 500 million unique viewers watching 180 billion streams per year with 1.8 trillion realtime transactions per day across more than 180 countries.”

The shifting platform pie comes as streaming usage has surged in places like South America, which saw usage increase by 240 this past year, as well as Africa (up 149%) and Europe (up 122%). 

In North America, where Roku and Fire TV are the dominant platforms, usage was only up 18%.

“While Roku captured a significant share of global viewing time, this prominence was primarily driven by North America, where it commanded 37% of big-screen viewing time in Q1 2021,” Conviva’s report stated. “In the second largest market for Roku, Europe, the company only accounted for 8% share of the big screen, trailing a number of other devices, including Samsung with 19%, Chromecast with 12%, Amazon Fire TV with 10%, LG TV with 10%, and Android TV with 9%.

Roku’s position is even worse in Africa, Asia, Oceania and South Africa, all of which it has 4% usage or less, Conviva added. 

Forty-one percent of the attempted streaming connections for Sunday’s 55th Super Bowl occurred on the Roku platform, according to research published by Conviva.

In terms of how many consumers used what connected TV platform to stream the big game, market share broke down kind of as you’d expect (see chart below)—Amazon Fire TV ranked No. 2, with 24% of streaming starts, followed by Apple TV (12%), Samsung TV Plus (8%), Xbox (4%) and PlayStation (4%).

What surprised us was what a non-factor Android TV/Google TV remain, despite the rapt attention we’ve paid to the evolution of the platform in recent months. Android TV commanded just 4% of Super Bowl streaming starts, according to Conviva, while Google’s legacy Chromecast platform owned just 1%. 

With Roku and Amazon mired in distribution disputes that kept Peacock and HBO Max off their device platforms for most of 2020, LightShed Partners analyst Richard Greenfield predicted in July that Google would soon end its long drought of connected TV success. 

“We believe Google’s lack of success in the TV ecosystem is set to change radically in the next 6-12 months, led by an updated Android TV UI and a reimagined Chromecast,” Greenfield wrote.

Google debuted its overhauled and rebranded version of Android TV, which it calls Google TV, along with the new Chromecast with Google TV device, back at the beginning of October. 

So far, based on this small bit of Conviva research, it doesn’t look like Google has been able to make a sizable dent in U.S. connected TV market share.

Time spent streaming in the fourth quarter jumped 44% from a year ago, according to Conviva’s State of Streaming report.

The report is the latest evidence of the shift to streaming that the media world is trying to adjust to.

“The way consumers view content fundamentally changed in 2020 with launch of new streaming services, the rapid adoption of smart TVs and connected TV devices and changing social behavior,” said Bill Demas, CEO of Conviva. “While the year was clearly defined by spikes in streaming viewing associated with COVID restrictions, the shift to streaming is anything but temporary and we anticipate global streaming viewership to continue to increase in 2021.”

Also Read: J.D. Power: New Streaming Services Chip Away at Netflix Dominance

Conviva found that big screens--smart TVs and connected devices--captured more than 75% of viewing time in the quarter. Roku had an industry-leading 31% share of all TV viewing, followed by Amazon Fire TV with 19% and Samsung TV with 10%.

Advertisers followed the shift to streaming. Ad attempts rose 34% in the quarter and ad impressions rose 31%. 

Conviva said that quality issues continue to plague advertisers with 40.1% of ads not delivering as expected. While viewers have shown that they want shorter ads, streaming ad lengths increased 12% in the quarter to 31.49 seconds.

“While many wish 2020 to be a year soon forgotten, it will likely be remembered as a pivotal year for streaming. The industry delivered with flourishing new services, astronomical peaks of growth, blockbusters released direct to streaming, and the rising profile of social media platforms,” the report concluded. “But for the industry to thrive, these positive trends must continue while we leave behind the anxiety-inducing news cycle that negatively impacted advertising and social media behaviors, the streaming burnout as consumers look for activities outside the home in a post-pandemic world, and the dearth of ad dollars coupled with persistent quality issues that resulted in 40% of streaming ads as missed opportunities.” 

Data for Conviva’s State of Streaming report was primarily collected from the company’s sensor technology, which is embedded in 3.3 billion streaming video applications.

NFL broadcast TV ratings have continued this season what has become a long, steady decline, dropping 10% collectively across CBS, FOX, ESPN and NBC, through the first four weeks of the 2020 pro football campaign, according to Sports Business Daily. 

But in its third-quarter State of Streaming report, research company Conviva releases NFL viewership data that seems to fly in the face of that downward trend. 

Overall, viewing of the National Football League is hip 41% on streaming platforms this season, Conviva said in a report released Oct. 29. The biggest spike in streaming NFL usage is via connected TV, which has seen a 38% spike. Mobile viewing is up only 15%. 

Streaming viewership of NFL games is up most in the daytime—63% vs. the 2019 season. NFL streaming is up only 32% for primetime games. 

Streaming continued to grow in the third quarter, according to a new report from Conviva.

In its latest State of Streaming Report, Conviva found that time spent streaming was up 57% year over year during the quarter. 

Advertisers appear to be following consumer eyeballs. After a big drop in the second quarter caused by the pandemic and a lack of live sports, Conviva found that ad demand bounced back in the third quarter. There was a 22% increase in impressions, resulting from a 14% increase in ad attempts and a 22% decrease in failed ad attempts

Ad quality improved with time spent waiting for ads to buffer down 28% and picture quality11% better.

While connected TV devices--Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Chromecast--were dominant in streaming viewership with 55% of global viewing time, streaming through apps on smart TVs doubled its share to 14.8%. Viewing on smart sets made by Samsung, LG and Vizio  grew faster grew 200%, compared to the overall 57% growth rate.

Among streaming devices, Roku led with a 47.7% share, followed by Amazon Fire with a 27.6% share.

The most powerful video content is the NFL and more fans are streaming when they watch games. Conviva said that the number of fans streaming was up 41% compared to last season. Daytime games were up 63% with nearly 70% of viewing happening on a big screen.

Streaming on TV sets accounted for 67% of NFL viewing, with mobile getting a 13% share and 6% happening on PCs during the quarter.

Conviva collected data for the survey from its sensor technology embedded in three billion streaming video applications, which measure more than 500 million unique viewers watching 150 billion streams per year.

While streaming got a boost from the pandemic, the economic weakness caused by the virus hurt advertising aimed at streaming viewers, according to a new report from Conviva.

In its State of Streaming Report for the second quarter, Conviva said that ad demand dropped, with attempts to insert ads down 22% in the U.S. and down 28% globally, compared to the first quarter, due in part to the lack of sports.

But Conviva found that the quality of stream advertising improve, with viewers spending 38% less time waiting for an ad to start. Viewers leaving before an ad started dropped 22%. The picture quality of ads, as measured by bitrate, was up 53%.

“Shelter-in-place mandates skyrocketed streaming viewership in April, led by Europe which saw a 174% increase year over year,” said Bill Demas, CEO of Conviva. “Unfortunately advertising moved in the opposite direction with global demand significantly reduced due to COVID-19. We expect advertising to bounce back in the coming quarters as the industry and viewers acclimate to a ‘new normal’ including streaming being part of the everyday routine.”

Streaming growth slowed in May and June slowed from April, when viewing was up 81%, compared to the previous year.

Global share of smart TV viewing more than doubled as viewing time increased 239% year over year. Viewing was also up on connected devices. Viewing via Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast and others was up 61%. Viewing on game consoles was up 55%.

Connected TV devices had the largest share of viewing time in both North America (56%) and Europe (32%).

Time spent streaming in the fourth quarter jumped 58% from a year ago, according to a new State of Streaming report from Conviva.

The big jump came as new streaming services Apple TV+ and Disney+ came online.

The jump in streaming has advertisers trying to follow viewers, but Conviva said there were quality issues with streaming commercials. The average wait time for an ad to start nearly doubled to 2.27 second from 1.14 seconds. That made viewers more likely to turn an ad off. Conviva found that 49% of viewers stopped watching while waiting for an ad to start.

On the upside for advertisers the number of ads that failed to play dropped to 36.5% in the fourth quarter from 39.6% in the third quarter.

“From recent entrants like Disney+ to soon-to-be-launched services like NBC’s Peacock and HBO Max, we’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of streaming’s impact not only on consumer behavior, but also on the multi-billion dollar advertising and entertainment industries,” said Conviva CEO Bill Demas. “As with any disruptive technology, growing pains are inevitable. The companies that win the streaming wars will be those able to offer viewers a fast, clear, reliable experience regardless of where in the world they live, or what device they use.”

As media companies and advertisers rush into streaming, a new report from Conviva finds viewers getting better service, but advertisers are still getting glitches.

In its third-quarter State of Streaming report, Conviva found healthy increases in several indicators that streaming video was performing better.

Compared to a year ago, video start failures are down 10%, video start times are 6% faster, there is 33% less buffering and picture quality, as measured by bit rate, is 3% better. Mobile showed a big improvement in reducing buffering, but video start time were down just 4% and video start failures were down 2%.

The NFL is potent programming in streaming, just as it has been in traditional TV. There was a 77% increase in streaming plays in the third quarter compared to a year ago. Time spent streaming NFL football was up 50%. Streaming on mobile devices was up 109%, and connected TV viewing grew 66%. Viewing on PCs was down 11%.

The stats regarding advertising weren’t as rosy for streaming commercials. Conviva said that 39.6% of all streaming ad attempts failed in the third quarter. They also had long start time of as long as 16.1 second. And viewers had to endure ads buffering as much as 45.9% of the time.

The ads are also hurting the duration of streaming sessions. Between 9% and 20% of viewers drop each time an ad runs. During sports, 18% of viewers drop when they see the first commercial, with later spots having less of an effect.

Among news viewers, the fourth ad they see drives 20% of viewers to drop out. In dramas, that four ad inspires 17 of viewers to drop and with reality viewers 16% go away.

Over, 54% of the audience stopped streaming a program by the time the fourth spot appeared.

Connected TVs were used for the most streaming activity, with viewing hours up 58%. PCs showed a 36% increase and mobile was up 33%.

Roku was the top brand of streaming device with a 44% share and a 73% increase in viewing time. Amazon Fire TV had a 20% share of the market and Apple TV had a 9% share.

Conviva found that Roku’s quality was up, with video start failures down 52%. XBox had the least buffering and Apple TV had the fastest video start times.

As part of set of top-level executive moves, OTT and video streaming measurement and analytics company Conviva has hired software industry vet Bill Demas as CEO.

Additionally, former Nielsen exec John Zelenka has joined as SVP of global sales, and company co-founder, Hui Zhang, has been appointed chief scientist and chairman of the board.

RELATED: Global OTT Video Viewing Doubles: Conviva

Demas most recently was CEO at Shopkick, a service that enabled consumers to earn free gift cards, and was CEO of Turn, the company behind a real-time digital advertising hub for audience planning. He is also late of Overture/Yahoo.

“Conviva is in a unique position as the only source of truth for digital TV and video,” Demas said in a statement. “The company is setting the measurement standard as streaming publishers and distributors continue to disrupt the industry. With a sensor footprint exceeding three billion applications and devices, and processing a trillion events per day, Conviva is helping streaming TV leaders like HBO, Sky, Turner, NBC, and Hulu deliver the best digital experience on any device today.”

Viewing hours of over-the-top, internet-delivered video grew by 114% in the first quarter from a year ago, according to a new report from Conviva.

Total viewing of movies, episodic TV shows, live linear TV and live sports on mobile, connected TV and desktop screens reached nearly five billion hours, .

Conviva uses an all-screen census measurement approach that captures data about streams played, viewing hours, devices and regions. It also gauges video start times, buffering time and bit rates.

“Because the complexity and viewership of our customers’ services are growing so fast, they can no longer rely on a sample-set of thousands when they are dealing with billions,” said Dr. Hui Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Conviva said, in a statement. “Things have changed quite a bit since Nielsen assembled a panel of viewers to analyze television. Conviva’s all-screen census measurement approach provides a unique perspective for understanding the dynamic landscape of viewership, content consumption and user experience across internet streaming services.”

In North America, streaming viewing hours increased 174%.

Conviva found that Apple TV saw 709% growth in viewing hours over the first quarter, based on the dynamic nature of the market and Conviva’s customer base, outpacing all other devices by almost two times. During the same period, while total viewing hours on Roku devices saw a rise of 87%, its overall share of total viewing hours dropped by 3%.

Quality of the streaming experience improved in the quarter. There was a drop in the number of videos that failed to start. The bit rate of video rose 29%.

Global viewing of over-the-top video content more than doubled last year to 12.6 billion hours, according to a new report by Conviva.

Viewing was done on more than 2.4 billion devices, up 9%, Conviva said. The U.S. accounted for 58% of OTT viewing, followed by Europe with 21%, Asia with 19% and the rest of the world with 2%.

“Conviva has seen the viewing hour growth rate accelerate over the past several years as more consumers move their TV-watching from traditional linear pay TV services to a very wide variety of OTT services offered by both pure play OTT publishers and MVPDs, as well as pay TV providers diversifying their service offerings,” the company said in its Streaming Market Year in Review report. “Conviva expects to see continued accelerated growth over the course of 2018 across both existing and new customers.”

The data in the report is based on Conviva customers, which the company said cover close to 60% of the internet population. The company measures seven out of the top 10 SVOD providers in the U.S., as well as other OTT providers globally.

The number of views initiated in 2017 rose 74% to 38.8 billion, with 54% of those in the U.S.

By December, 64% of traffic on Conviva’s platform came through video apps, compared with 36% from watching video through browsers. That’s the opposite of the year prior. Video app activity grew 160%, while browser video rose 23%.

As many as 1.04 billion unique streaming apps reside on devices in the U.S., with 2.2 apps per device and 2.9 devices per person.

Conviva said the peak in concurrent video connections was 9.75 million, with spikes for both live sports and original content.

In-home devices, such as the Xbox and Roku platforms, showed the highest completion rate for video programming at 46%, with 71% growth in viewing time per device, Conviva said. Streaming video programming was more likely to be interrupted when viewed on a mobile device.

In terms of quality of OTT video, Conviva said that of the 47.1 billion attempts to start watching a video, 38.8 billion were successful. It took an average of 4.84 seconds for a video to start, a 23% improvement from the previous year.

Related: DirecTV Now Customers Suffer Outages, Buffering

Buffering issues improved slightly. While watching a half-hour show, the average viewer spent 0.95% of the time, or less than 18 seconds, waiting for video to rebuffer.

“The OTT market continues to see explosive growth not only in the number of viewers, but the amount of time spent viewing as well,” Conviva said.

Conviva, an over-the-top TV data business, said it raised $40 million in strategic funding from new and existing investors.

Participating in the round of funding were existing investors Time Warner Investments, New Enterprise Associates and Foundation Capital, plus a new investor, Future Fund.

Conviva has software sensors that are deployed on 2.5 billion devices globally and measure more than 1 billion streaming minutes per day of premium video for HBO, Sky Turner and other content companies.

The company said it saw 80% growth in viewing minutes in 2016 and expects 150% growth in 2017.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Expanding beyond its focus on cinemas and consumer electronics, THX Ltd. said it’s working with a mix of content creators, service providers and distributors on a new audio and video streaming quality certification program.

THX, the company founded by filmmaker George Lucas in 1983 and acquired last year by gaming hardware and software company Razer, claimed that the new program will help streaming companies “perfect their encoding and delivery methods” to ensure the highest possible quality of audio and visuals.

RELATED: THX Acquired by Razer

THX has tapped Conviva as its Quality of Experience (QoE) launch partner for the new streaming certification program. Conviva’s role will include the collection of data used to analyze streaming quality and will be combined with THX’s expertise in picture quality, encoding and compression techniques, and content packaging, they said.

“The goal is to establish a universal standard for quality in the streaming world that consumers can trust… just as we’ve done for cinema and consumer electronics,” THX CEO Ty Ahmad-Taylor said in a release.

Conviva’s customers include Crackle, ESPN, Sky, Scripps Networks Interactive, Turner, Disney Movies, BBC, CBS, DirecTV, Yahoo, Vevo, Verizon, Starz and Crunchyroll, among others.

Conviva has inked a deal that will bring its video optimization platform to EchoStar Technologies and its support for two IP offerings from corporate cousin Dish Network – Dish Anywhere, the satellite company’s authenticated TV Everywhere product, and Dish World, the over-the-top international sports subscription service.

The agreement announced Wednesday only mentions  Dish Anywhere and Dish World, but a logical, additional candidate for Conviva’s technology is Dish’s coming single-stream OTT subscription video service that will largely target a group of so-called “cord-cutters” and “cord-nevers.”

EchoStar has a clear stake in that effort. EchoStar will continue to provide engineering and platform operation services to Dish’s emerging digital/OTT service, but the tech unit will no longer be obligated to fund one-third of the project’s ongoing costs, EchoStar CEO and president Michael Dugan said last Thursday (Aug. 7) on the company’s second quarter earnings call. Under the revised arrangement, EchoStar also retained a right to 10% “of the value created by the growth of Dish Digital,” he added.

Meanwhile, central to the technology agreement tied to Dish Anywhere and Dish World, is Conviva’s Intelligent Control Platform and Conviva Precision, systems that rely on real-time analytics to boost the quality of video applications and services delivered over the Internet. Among its components, Conviva’s platform collects data from millions of devices that obtain IP video services from the Conviva’s customers, a list that includes ESPN, NBCUniversal, HBO, Viacom, Virgin Media, DirecTV, Starz, Verizon, and Ziggo, among others.

Conviva collects that data and processes it to determine if a video session started properly or if it’s experiencing buffering or some other issue that is impacting the quality of the experience, and root the issue to its origin, whether it’s at the peering point, on the access network. It matches that data with conditions occurring on the Internet and uses a predictive algorithm to avoid traffic jams and to find the most optimal path.

“The more traffic we put on our system, the smarter it becomes,” Chris Roach, Conviva’s vice president, Americas, said, noting that Conviva currently monitors nearly 5 billion streams per month. “This control layer for publishers enables the transformation of Web video to Internet television.”

While adaptive bit rate streaming adjusts the bit rate and resolution of a video based on available bandwidth, the technique doesn’t typically use a broader set of data to determine the more global conditions of the Internet, he said.

“Conviva’s robust platform delivers several key applications that allow us to optimize the quality of experience for DISH Internet TV services across all devices, providing granular, real-time analytics and preemptive optimization,” said Jeff McSchooler, senior vice president of engineering for EchoStar, in a statement. “We strive to give DISH subscribers a streaming experience with little interruption and the highest picture quality possible. The visibility and control Conviva provides is critical to that ongoing endeavor.”