Netflix has a key advantage over Amazon in courting advertisers

New data from Digital i, an SVOD measurement and research service, showed that Netflix subscriber accounts watched an average of 108 minutes per day in Q1 2024, more than three times that of Prime Video subscriber accounts (31 minutes per day).

The gap also applies if you just look at Netflix with ads. Digital i found average daily viewership per Netflix ads account was 92 minutes per day. That’s less than the 112 average minutes viewed per day by ad-free Netflix accounts but still well above the time Prime Video accounts spend on the service.

A few caveats: According to Digital i, the data includes viewing from all devices and downloaded viewing, but not content viewed live on Amazon. The same episode or movie rewatched several times within the same month only counts once.

And in terms of raw numbers, Netflix still has far fewer subscribers to its ad tier. It recently reported 40 million monthly global users of its ads plan, which is more than the number of people who actually subscribe.

Still, time spent is a factor advertisers will weigh when deciding where to place their TV budgets. If people aren’t watching the service much, there’s less opportunity to reach them with ads. Some advertisers may not mind if there are other compelling reasons for them to advertise on Prime Video, such as the ability to tie ads to sales on the wider Amazon platform, though.

Netflix has had challenges of its own in growing its ads business. While Netflix has said 40% of new subscribers are taking the ad plan in markets where it’s available, advertisers still consider that subscriber base to be small.

Digital i launched in 2003 and started measuring SVODs in 2019. It measures Netflix, Prime Video, Max, and Disney+ in 20 countries across the US, Canada, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. The data comes from a panel-based app measuring 3,000 households per market, which studios and rights holders use to understand their audiences and value their content.

Here are some other other findings from Digital i:

• Netflix and Prime Video have similar viewer demographics, with Prime skewing slightly older. Max skews younger, with 51% of viewers aged 18 to 34 without kids. Disney+ is driven by kid viewing, with 72% of viewing coming from subscribers with kids.
• As the streamers figure out how much original content they need to keep people subscribing, Digital i also looked at viewership of licensed versus original content. Licensed content makes up about half of viewing across Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, with the rest coming from originals. Licensing has been making a comeback as media companies look to monetize their libraries.
• Max viewership is driven by reruns of old favorites, with the average viewer watching 90 episodes of “Big Bang Theory” and 63 episodes of “Friends” in Q1.

The firm also shared a peek at some shows’ completion rates. They underscore the challenges writers will have hitting the requirements to get residuals bonuses that came out of the 2023 Writers Guild of America’s 2023 contract, and how it’s hard to get little-viewed shows renewed.

• The canceled “American Born Chinese” had a completion rate of 26%, while the Star Wars spinoff “Ahsoka” had a completion rate of 62%.
• On Netflix, “The Brothers Sun” had a 10% completion rate, while Julia Roberts-starring “Leave the World Behind” got 52%.
• And in an example of how spinoffs based on well-known characters and storylines aren’t always a sure thing, Prime Video’s “The Boys Gen V” spinoff had a CVE (completed viewing equivalents) of 16%, while Prime Video’s “Reacher Season 2” had a 26% CVE.