Global streaming intelligence provider NPAW has released its 1H 2025 report on the state of the streaming video industry with new data showing the average time spent streaming both linear and on demand content fell off in North America during the first half of the year.

North American video-on-demand engagement in the first half of 2025 was 69 minutes per day, down 18% from a year ago, while linear TV fell 21% to 41 minutes over that span.

The report did find some notable improvements in quality KPIs (key performance indicators), average bit rates and average buffer ratio quality. It also highlighted the importance of TV viewing, with TVs continuing to hold by far the highest share of viewing among devices.

"The first half of 2025 displayed some remarkable improvements in quality KPIs across the globe,” explained Ferran G. Vilaro, CEO and co-founder of NPAW. “With LATAM, the Middle East and North America showing the greatest gains, most regions have seen an upward shift in Buffer Ratio quality, Avg. Bitrate and Join Times. These are clear indicators of ongoing investment in infrastructure by OTTs, telco providers and broadcasters alike."

He also pointed out that the data shows "wider adoption of Smart TVs and Set Top Boxes as the devices of choice for viewers, especially when it comes to long format content. Quality metrics on these devices, by and large, are greatly improved over H1 2024. Again, on STBs and TVs, we see greater engagement than on other devices - 69% total for VoD, and an incredible 87% for LinearTV. The majority of viewers are choosing to consume content on the large screen."

The NAPW researchers described the other key takeaways as follows:

• "Global VOD engagement decreases compared to H1 2024 Both avg. Playtime per User and Titles per User per day showed slight dips when compared to last year H1.
• “Global VOD quality is one the rise, in most KPIs Improvements in Avg. Bitrate, Join Time and Buffer Ratio (%) can be seen in almost all regions.
• “Global VOD Device engagement dominated by TVs and STBs Q1 shows the greatest engagement rates, with the highest playtime per user across most devices.
• “Linear TV Global Quality: Shows solid improvements Avg. Join Time, Buffer Ratio (%) and Avg. Bitrate all display major gains, with Join Times decreasing by -16% vs H1 2024
• “Linear TV - Regional Engagement strongest in Europe: The Middle East showed the greatest gains, with 13% uplift compared to H1 2024. Europe leads viewership with over 60 minutes per user per day.
• “Linear TV device share dominated by TVs and STBs: The top 2 device types account for more than 87% of viewership, showing the users prefer the large screen for lengthy viewing."

The full report is available here.

In response to the streaming problems faced by viewers of the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match on Netflix, the National Association of Broadcasters has issued a blog calling broadcast TV the “buffer free MVP of live sports” because of its reliability, free over-the-air access and robust one-to-many architecture.

Netflix has reported that 60 million households watched the Paul vs. Tyson main event live around the world, on Nov. 15 peaking at 65 million concurrent streams, but the hefty traffic also led to widespread criticism as the streaming coverage was marred by glitches and buffering.

“If you were one of the many of viewers who tuned into the highly-anticipated boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul this past weekend, you were probably expecting exciting nonstop action,” NAB Senior Vice President of Communications Alex Siciliano wrote. “Instead, what transpired was far more disappointing—a viewing experience marred by glitches and buffering from a popular pay-TV service trying its hand in live sports.”

The criticism as a record amount of popular sports content has been shifting to streaming media.

“It was a good reminder that when it comes to live sports, no other medium can match broadcast television’s high-quality, reliable viewing experience,” noted Scilliano, who also stressed that investments being made in NextGen TV will only improve those experiences. “No costly subscriptions. No worrying about your internet speed. Just the excitement of the game, delivered in high-definition to your TV screen. The beauty of television broadcasting is its ‘one-to-many’ architecture. For popular sports programming, like the Super Bowl or World Series, there is no limit to how many viewers can tune in—and no risk of buffering.”

The streaming problems raise concerns about Netflix’s ability to handle its upcoming NFL games on Christmas Day.

But the global reach of streaming platforms like Netflix and their ability to finance increasingly expensive premier sports rights makes the shift of rights to streaming services likely to accelerate, analysts argue.

“Many are ridiculing Netflix’s technical struggles last Friday during the Tyson-Paul fight to highlight how unprepared Netflix is for the NFL on Christmas,” LightShed Partners analyst Richard Greenfield wrote. “However, the real takeaway should be that Netflix can deliver unprecedented reach. Friday’s fight should be a wake-up call to every sports executive on planet earth that they need a Netflix strategy.

“Netflix’s ability to reach an average of 60 million households globally (AMA throughout the entire fight) with well over 100 million people watching live, is truly astounding in that it only represents 21% of Netflix’s sub base (and remember, 34% of Netflix’s subscribers are in Europe and would have been asleep during the fight, implying 32% of its non-European sub base watched the fight live),” he explained.

“And for those that worry about Netflix’s ability to handle the NFL (and Beyoncé), we believe they gained invaluable knowledge about scaling global live events that is not possible in a lab,” he added, citing a post from a YouTube engineer describing the difficulties of planning for a large streaming event.

BARCELONA, Spain—Streaming providers worldwide are increasing their infrastructure buildout to reduce latency and hiccups for consumers and the results are beginning to show, according to NPAW, a provider of streaming video intelligence services.

The first six months of 2024 saw a large global increase in quality of experience, with a 54% decrease in buffer ratio for Video-on-Demand (VOD) services, compared to the same period last year, according to the company’s 2024 1st half Video Streaming Industry Report. This KPI illustrates a worldwide shift in the quality of streaming video services. It’s also an indication of the global commitment of OTTs, Telcos and Broadcasters to providing better streaming quality, NPAW said.

Linear TV buffer ratio also improved remarkably in H1 2024, with a global decrease of 34% vs H1 2023 and 24% vs H2 2023. The Asia region alone experienced a 35% decrease in buffer ratio.

“Telcos, broadcasters and OTTs are investing heavily, thus improving the overall quality of the streaming video landscape. With new players entering the market regularly, it’s becoming much more competitive. We are seeing the world rapidly shift away from traditional TV and towards streaming providers.” said Ferran G. Vilaró, NPAW CEO & Co-Founder.

Thereport explores the current state of the video streaming industry both globally and regionally, comparing engagement and quality data from the first half of 2024 with the same period in 2023. The analyzed data were collected from the NPAW Suite for January to June 2024 and contrasted with data from January to June 2023. Advertising data were also gathered from January to June 2024.

To access this report please download here.

As YouTube TV’s profile as the most popular virtual multichannel program distributor in the U.S. rises, so do concerns from sports fans about the service’s ability to handle high-profile live sporting events. 

Such concerns came to a head May 17 when the streams “froze” for many users near the end of the Miami Heat vs. Boston Celtics game, the first matchup of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals on TNT. The same glitch occurred the following night between the Nuggets-Lakers game, albeit not affecting as many viewers, according to news reports. 

The problems were not restricted just to YouTube TV however, some fans reported the same problems with Sling TV as well over the weekend. However, with the launch of YouTube TV’s upcoming NFL Sunday Ticket package coming up this fall, the pressure is on the service to fix whatever issues caused the glitches in the first place. 

The company attributed the issue to  “elevated rebuffing rates” which resulted in viewers seeing an endless loop of a promotion for the upcoming Disney flick “The Little Mermaid.” A YouTube TV engineer posted a short comment on a Reddit board last week saying they were aware of the ads buffering/freezing issue and were working on a fix. 

Some speculated that the glitch was the result of a feature that would prevent viewers from fast forwarding through the promotion, however, the problem wasn’t isolated to the TNT channel; other channels on YTTV also suffered the same issue. Still others think the problem was a result of TNT's use of digital ad insertion during commercial breaks. 

No problems issues were reported during this past weekend NBA games.

Buffering issues have long been a concern among vMVPD providers such as Hulu+ and Sling TV. However, many pundits warned that YouTube TV may be taking on more than it can handle when it rolls out its NFL package this fall—with NFL games comprising more than 80% of TV’s 100 highest rated programming, bandwidth problems could damage its reputation as the most popular service of its type. 

NFL games shown on Amazon Prime over the past two seasons have also suffered from quality issues as well, according to digital trends. And with last week’s announcement that Peacock would broadcast the first ever NFL playoff game next season—when viewership will skyrocket past the already massive regular season numbers—the pressure is on to resolve such issues before the fall. 

DENVER—Buffering video and poor-quality video can cost streaming services dearly—as much as $390 million per month, according to research from Bitmovin, a streaming infrastructure and adaptive streaming player developer.

Poor quality video and buffering can be dealbreakers as U.S. streaming subscribers get a little pickier about their streaming subscriptions, especially in the midst of belt tightening, the company said. Nearly half (47%) said they have unsubscribed due to buffering. The research also found 27% said they would drop service due to poor video quality.

Bitmovin estimated the lost monthly revenue being as much as $390 million a month based on there being 122.3 million U.S. households, 85% of which subscribe to at least one streaming service. These subscribers pay an average monthly subscription fee of $7.99, with nearly half dropping subscriptions due to buffering. 

Subscribers will consider cancelling service when their buffering wait reaches 13.5 seconds on average. However, subscribers are more tolerant with certain types of content. For example, religious content subscribers said they would consider cancelling if waits exceed 15.5 seconds on average; eSports and eLearning, 15.4; and paid-for streaming services after 14 seconds, the research found.

Males were less tolerant of buffering than females. Male subscribers to paid services said they would tolerate only 13 seconds of buffering before contemplating cancellation, while female subscribers would put up with buffering for 14.9 seconds, it said.

With OTT services like Netflix announcing an ad-supported tier, the research polled people on their reaction. It found that on average 68% would happily pay a little bit extra for a subscription to not encounter advertising. That number climbs to 78% among 18-to-35-year-olds. A total of 58% will tolerate ads on free streaming services.

Among the other research findings: 25% of Americans value the ability to use streaming services across all devices and chose that as one of their three top reasons to keep subscribing; and connected TVs (CTVs) are the primary viewing platform at 67%; mobile phones are second at 49%, laptops third at 25%, and tablets came in last at 23%.

“We are in an era of technology-driven experiences, and so, within this tech-savvy generation, streamers need to go above and beyond just offering entertaining content. The consumer, especially when paying for these services, also wants a seamless and enjoyable experience. Streamers need to realize that it’s not just great content that will help them win out but also top-notch delivery of its content,” said Bitmovin CEO and founder Stefan Lederer.

An external research agency conducted the research and provided results from 2,000 U.S. respondents, the company said.

Online video provides consumers with the convenience to watch what they want, when they want, provided everything goes according to plan. As the recent Disney+ launch showed, streaming can also provide a great deal of pain when users click the “play” button and then experience buffering.

Unsure if their video will begin in 1 second, 10 seconds or perhaps never, viewers are forced to wait, reboot their service, or choose another video. More than one-third of U.S. viewers feel this frustration, contributing to churn and cutting into profit.

A well-funded, beloved brand like Disney will survive these early buffering issues, but as competition ramps up, these problems have the potential to hurt other VOD providers much worse than they have in the past. Streaming services must grasp how big the buffering issue is and take steps to reduce its negative impact, before it potentially puts them out of business.

THE MOBILE EXPERIENCE

Nowhere is this more important than in mobile, which accounted for 22% of streaming hours in Q3 2019, according to Conviva. While mobile’s share of viewing hours is less than half of connected TV, its rate of growth was still 33% in the quarter, which is not insignificant.

The trouble is that mobile viewership is more likely to introduce buffering issues. More often than not, buffering is a result of poor internet connection. Viewers want to see content while they’re on the go, but movement means they are often in and out of strong signal throughout their journey. In fact, motion isn’t even required: it can be difficult to get a strong cellular signal inside a building, and even hotels can have spotty in-room Wi-Fi service.

Mobile streaming quality is getting better, but not enough to meet viewer expectations. According to the same Conviva study, mid-stream buffering on mobile devices improved by 34% year-over-year. Unfortunately, video start failures improved by just 2% in mobile, well below the rate of improvement in PC and connected TV. Video start time was also a mere 4% faster, hardly a great leap. It would be foolish for streaming providers to pat themselves on the back for improving the mid-stream experience when so many viewers still have trouble getting videos to start playing in the first place.

THE COST OF BUFFERING

These start-time issues have a domino effect, eating into potential time those viewers could spend watching content. A “rebuffering ratio” (the percentage of time a viewer spends waiting, as opposed to watching video) of less than 1% results in 2.9 billion viewing hours lost to buffering in one quarter.

Buffering’s impact on the viewer experience only gets worse when ads are introduced, as 39.6% of streaming ads actually failed to load in Q3 2019. If pre-roll ad delays reach 5 seconds, 13.6% of viewers abandon the stream. This results in less available ad inventory, cutting into ad-supported VOD profits and prohibiting advertisers from reaching valuable audiences. Advertisers aren’t going to pay if their ads are responsible for killing viewer engagement, rather than inspiring it. Just like viewers, advertisers are going to seek out frictionless experiences to get their money’s worth.

While buffering is a common part of the streaming video experience, it still has the potential to erode viewers’ good will. It may be outside of VOD providers’ control, but consumers aren’t always aware of who’s to blame. They focus their anger on the brand name in front of them, which is the provider itself. Buffering happens, but VOD providers can’t simply accept buffering as inevitable, less they face this ire from choice-rich consumers.

That’s because above all else, subscription and ad-supported VOD services are all competing for viewer engagement and time. The average household subscribes to three video services, and even with programming getting spread out across more services, it’s unlikely that viewers will add more subscriptions. Capture viewer attention, and that viewer will continue paying a monthly subscription or engaging with ad-supported content, while also spending less time with competing services. Failure to fight buffering—and the poor experience that it brings—is just giving the viewer a reason to cancel their subscription. And the result could be catastrophic for a VOD provider going forward.

Dan Taitz is president of video technology company Penthera.

FOSTER CITY, Calif.—As streaming continues to build in popularity, so too does the video quality offered by the platforms, with the largest gain seen among PCs and mobile devices.

These are part of the findings from the “State of Streaming” report for the third quarter 2019 put out by Conviva.

On a year-to-year comparison, video quality overall improved for streaming, with video start failures down 10%, video start times occurring 6% faster, there is 33% less buffering and the picture quality, which is based on bitrate, 3% better. Streaming on PCs had the most consistent improvement, seeing 17% fewer video start failures, 23% faster video start times and 26% less buffering. Mobile’s biggest gain was the decrease in buffering (34%), but video start failures and start times improvements were smaller (down 2% and 4%, respectively).

However, the quality of video ads did not see improvement in Q3. Conviva found that 39.6% of all streaming ad attempts failed, while it could take up 16.1 seconds for an ad to start and there was 45.9% ad buffering. Between 9 and 20% of viewers dropped a stream when an ad popped up. After four ads, 54% of audiences would drop, however not in sports, as viewers became less likely to drop after the first ad.

Overall, Conviva found that the amount of time spent streaming in Q3 was up 53% over the same period last year, the majority of which (63%) is on-demand over TVs, PCs and mobile devices.

Additional findings included NFL fans making moves toward streaming for game action. Q3 saw a 77% increase in streaming plays and 50% in time overall. Mobile saw the largest growth at 109%, while TV came in at 66% growth; PCs saw a decline of 11%. Mobile viewing is mostly just to watch game highlights, while streaming through social media varies on platform depending on what team someone is a fan of.

Roku also was the leading device for streaming (44% of market share), but Amazon Fire TV saw the largest growth rate for viewing time at 78%.

“Streaming is quickly becoming the new normal,” said Bill Demas, Conviva CEO. “As a result, we will continue to see new upstarts in the category accompanied by traditional media companies and big brand advertisers embracing the potential of the market. This is an industry undergoing massive growth and what happens in the next 18 months will shape what, how and when we watch content in the future.”

The full report can be found here.

LOS ANGELES—One oft-touted advantage of transitioning from SDI baseband video to an IP equivalent is the ability to use common off-the-shelf (COTS) computer hardware to replace specialty video equipment.

The idea is that the economies of scale the computer industry brings to the table are so far superior to anything the M&E industry can muster, which should make it easier for broadcasters and others to adopt IP-based workflows.

However, a presentation at the SMPTE 2018 Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition by Jean Lapierre, senior director of software engineering at Matrox Graphics, sheds a somewhat different light on the issue. While his “Bridging The Gap Between Software and SMPTE ST 2110” presentation did not address the cost issue, it did throw into question the notion of “common” in “common off-the-shelf” computer hardware for M&E applications.

“We think that ST 2110 with full implementation of [ST] 2059 is very difficult using a generic network card and some software,” he said. “It’s much easier if we are leveraging some hardware acceleration on the network card. And we think that the way to do that is to use an FPGA-based network card that actually understands the full ST 2110 implementation.”

PACKET SPACING

Lapierre offered several examples of situations in which a conventional network interface card (NIC) and use of a computer’s CPU would not be up to task.

For instance, traffic shaping is “actually quite tricky to do in software,” he said. Lapierre explained that simply using software to packetize a frame of video and send it as fast as possible on the network is not a realistic solution.

He pointed to an example of 1080p 60 video at a little bit less than 3Gb/s being sent over a 10Gig network.

Sending a frame from a hypothetical source A as fast as possible will take about a third of the memory in a receiver’s buffer. However, if two more sources are added and all three burst their packets onto the network, the network switch will not be able to send all of the packets at the same time. This will require buffering, said Lapierre.

With just three sources, this approach is acceptable. “Where we get into trouble is when you try to move that to scale,” he said.

A far bigger buffer will be needed on the switch; however, it still may be inadequate and have to drop packets, which is undesirable, he explained.

SMPTE ST 2110 addresses this situation through packet spacing, which is “a nice way of spreading packets over time,” which creates holes for other packets to fill as they traverse a network, he said.

In the same example, the same amount of data is sent on the network, but spread out over time, allowing the receiver to build up the frame. With packet spacing, if two more sources are introduced, the switch only has to buffer a smaller part of the second and third source, he said.

However, doing so in software is tricky, said Lapierre. One strategy is to build time loops to build in the needed delay, but that wastes CPU cycles that could be used on an important task.

Additionally, the computer’s operating system may have an essential task to perform, putting the time loop to sleep momentarily to accomplish the task, thereby unexpectedly extending the duration of the loop.

“We think it is better to leave that job to a network card that can do the packet spacing for you.”

PTP-AWARE NETWORK CARD

Precision Time Protocol (PTP), which keeps audio and video packet flows from multiple streams in step in time, is also a challenge in a software implementation.

In this example, PTP would require a network stack, consisting of a grand master clock, a conventional NIC, an operating system and the software implementation, he said.

“Well, my piece of software uses that stack to talk to the grand master to find out what time it is, and by time the message comes back I have to try to figure out how long it took for this message to get there and how long it took to get back,” he explained.

The problem is it can take a variable amount of time to go through the stack, he added.

“We can improve our situation by using a network card that understands our situation,” said Lapierre. However, the precision of PTP that is possible in software is inadequate and “can wreak havoc,” he said.

“What we think is better is if the network card, which is PTP-aware, is the one responsible for doing the time stamping—and why not [also] doing the packet spacing,” he said.

By adding a network interface card to a system with on-board ST 2110 and ST 2059 support, vendors can spend their development time improving their own Software solutions, not dealing with these network interfacing issues, he explained.

“Also, if we look at all the CPU processing we are talking about we will be wasting CPU cycles doing timing loops and things of that nature. To me, if we do that, it sounds like we are doing less with more and not more with less,” he concluded.