Watch parties Rebooting the watercooler moment

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20,000 foot view: Group watching television with family and friends is being consigned to a bygone era. Algorithms are forcing entertainment consumers into silos through an endless stream of personally recommended content and the fallout is a relentless battle for audience engagement across a myriad of devices. Subscription video on demand services (SVOD) are eating linear TV, while SVOD is under siege from social video – and after decades of ruling household entertainment, the smartphone is dethroning the TV set. As a result, watercooler moments that define cultures and drive discovery through word of mouth are losing their potency outside of news and sport. Watch parties could provide a rear-guard offensive.
Key insights
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Linear television has become background viewing as nearly half of smart- TV owners watch TV while doing something else
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SVOD consumption is a focused activity for smart-TV owners with concentrating on the task, compared to who say it is on in the background
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However, SVOD viewing is splintered by devices and age demographics – of watched shows and movies on a smartphone during 2022
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SVOD engagement is also pressured by entertainment multi-tasking; socialising while engaging in digital expanded from hours to hours per week between 2021 and 2022
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Watch parties fight fragmentation by targeting an engagement sweet spot. In of focused video viewers watched something they are a fan of and watched new content
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Watch parties can make video ad-friendly by using engagement data for better performance – of binge viewers paid attention to ads that were relevant to them
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Watch parties can identify influencers to bolster engagement by targeting video and games crossovers – of horror fans played Call of Duty in 2022
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Adoption of watch party spending will accelerate by targeting high spenders on creator subscriptions, of which spent between and on in-game purchases during 2022
Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Amazon, Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Watch Party, Bridgerton, Call of Duty, Call of Duty: Warzone , Channel Crunchyroll, DAZN, Discord, I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! , Instagram, ITV, Love is Blind, Minecraft , Netflix, Premier League, Squid Game , Teleparty, The Great British Bake Of f, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Peripheral , Twitch, YouTube