Reed Hastings has said on numerous occasions that his company's biggest competition doesn't come from HBO Max or Disney Plus or any other subscription streaming service as much as it does other consumer pastimes, notably video gaming.
According to the latest Hub Entertainment Research report, the Netflix co-CEO is right.
The share of leisure time spent by American consumers watching movies and TV shows declined 5% from 2020 - 2021, and was down a whopping 11% from 2019 -2021. Meanwhile, the share of time consumed playing video games was up 4% from 2020-2021.
How could that be, when other research suggests that folks are watching more TV than ever before? Well, Hub is only measuring time spent on leisure activities ... and its assumption seems to be that folks are spending the pandemic era doing more leisure activity in general -- the overall pie is expanding.
Hub said it conducted its study among 2,179 U.S. consumers aged 13-74 back in December.
As you might expect, younger consumers are driving the phenomena. The 13-24 cohort spends only 13% of its time watching "TV," while those age 35 and older throw 45% of their leisure time at the activity.
Notable also is the time younger consumers spend watching "non-premium" online video. Consumers age 13-24 spend almost as much time watching content on TikTok and other online video platforms than they do "premium" TV.
Also, 51% of the 13-24 cohort said they're spending less time watching TV because of "other screen options" vs. only 19% for consumers 35 and older.
