Parrot Analytics: ‘Word of mouth’ still top way to find new shows
February 27, 2018
In a Global Television Demand Report published, Parrot Analytics, a data analytics firm focused on measuring global demand for content, is revealing findings from its 2017 study of global television trends in 10 markets: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Spain, UK and the US. The report combines findings from its proprietary global, cross-platform, country-specific audience demand measurement system encompassing over 3.5 trillion data points and consumer surveys conducted in all 10 markets.
For the audience content discovery portion of the report, Parrot Analytics conducted two surveys with 500 respondents each for a total of 10,000 respondents across all 10 markets. Each survey asked how the person discovered new television content to watch when not online and when online. In most markets, Parrot Analytics survey respondents said word of mouth (both online and offline) was the most common way they discovered new content to watch, with 34 per cent of people in each market looking to friends and family for show recommendations. Offline, television listings and guides, as well as advertisements were the next-most common discovery method, with 26 per cent of respondents reporting they found new shows this way. Online, about 19 per cent discovered new content by browsing articles, news, and blogs.
“The global consumer entertainment market is fractured and TV series viewing is happening across a multitude of platforms and devices. Beyond being the industry standard for global TV demand measurement, we wanted to understand what was driving content discovery among consumers around the world,” said Samuel Stadler, Vice President of Marketing, Parrot Analytics. “Our global survey focused on a single theme, which was to understand how audiences discover new TV shows to watch across all platforms. We were surprised to find that, offline and online, as well as in all territories, conventional ‘word of mouth’ recommendations are still the predominant way new content is discovered.”
Parrot Analytics’ Global Television Demand Report also breaks down audience demand trends by platform, including SVoD, in each territory. In the US for example, Netflix, with over 50 new titles released in 2017 alone, accounted for over 70 per cent of the total demand for digital original series. Amazon, Hulu and all other platforms accounted for an equal share of demand with around 10 per cent each.
In addition, the report found that demand for dramas in the U.S. started the year twice as high as any other genre and its lead only increased throughout 2017. Comedy was the second most-popular genre, but science fiction surpassed it with the release of the second season of Stranger Things and Star Trek: Discovery.
Stranger Things was the most-popular digital original series in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Japan in 2017. It was number two in Australia, just behind 13 Reasons Why.