New Report Reveals Details About Millennial Viewing Habits

by Eric Burgess – @erburgess

Millennials watch more video than any other US age group and they aren’t just watching social video. According to research from TiVo, Millennials actually watch more television shows than anything else. Where they are actually watching those television shows, however, will benefit brands working in influencer marketing.

More than nine in ten Millennials watch digital video on a monthly basis but the October 2015 report from TiVo shows that television shows are the top category of video content they view. More than a third of Millennial respondents confirmed that they watch television show content most often, as opposed to full-length films at 18 percent and music videos at 12 percent.

Digital video viewers within the age category continue to grow. The report notes that there will be 78 million digital video viewers within the generation in 2016, which represents 92 percent of all US Millennials on the internet. The growth is actually slowing, but only because nearly all Millennials are already viewing digital video regularly.

What does this mean for Influencer Marketing?

Although these Millennials are watching television shows, they aren’t watching them primarily on traditional broadcast or cable. 61 percent are regularly accessing video content via streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. As a result, they’re already in the digital video ecosystem that includes social video on YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and other similar platforms where they can also view social media creator content.

Notably, if you combine the report’s user-generated content categories, 15 percent of the respondents said that the primary type of content they watch is user-generated online video. The top-performing type of user-generated content for Millennials continues to be video game play. 28 percent of Millennials report that they watch others play video games on Twitch, YouTube Gaming or other similar channels. All of the user-generated content view percentages are on the rise from previous reports, pointing toward a growing interest in content from social media creators and opportunity for influencer marketing strategies.