Reports Critical Developments

Media consumption Lockdown’s attention boom

Mark Mulligan
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The 20,000 Foot View:  2020 was a year like no other. With large swathes of the population confined to their homes for portions of the year, audiences had more time on their hands and more money in their pockets. These conditions created a boom in entertainment consumption, throwing up a mixture of intuitive trends and unexpected winners.

Key insights

  • Audiences filled            of their additional            of time            lockdown consuming more entertainment. Overall            consumption time increased by            between            and            2020
  • Video consumption            most over lockdown, up            to                       average weekly hours
  • Non-music audio            less time than video            hours)            surged in relative terms            thus            its share of media time,            music added half as much           
  • Games was            second biggest gainer of time            video, growing by            to add            whole weekly hour of time
  • Audiobooks gained            by            compared to            for podcasts            just            for streaming music 
  • Audiobooks and            combined share of audio time             by           
  • Music streamers            lockdown looking to do something            with their extra spare time,            audiobook time more than music           
  • Weekly radio            decreased their radio listening by            their behaviour both away from            as a whole            and to                      
  • Traditional TV            time was up            hours, but 
  • audiences spent            more time watching on demand            resulting in traditional TV losing            video time
  • Mobile gamers            their average time gaming across            platforms by            while computer and            gamers increased by just            and           
  • As life            to some normality post-pandemic, the            time and spend enabled by            will recede. This coming ‘attention            will affect all entertainment companies            may be compounded by an            recession

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Audible, Amazon, Amazon Music, Disney+, Instagram, Netflix, Spotify, TikTok, Twitch