As audio and video streaming become a larger part of consumers' daily media habits, the heaviest of these users have grown to represent a lucrative advertising target. Their demographic makeup, purchasing patterns, and media activity were the focus of Nielsen's recent webinar, “Scarborough Streaming Insights: A Day in the Life of Heavy Streamers.”
According to Nielsen Scarborough, close to 81.2 million adults in the U.S. fall into the heavy streamer category, defined as using two or more audio streaming services, and two or more video streaming services, in the past 30 days. “[These] consumers are embracing the evolution of streaming,” Nielsen Senior Manager, Customer Success Susanne Walton says. “This is definitely a hyper-connected group of consumers with some serious disposable income.”
While New York is the market with the greatest share of heavy streamers in the U.S. overall, a rank based on markets with the largest percentage of heavy streaming adults shows that six of the top 10 are in Texas, with San Antonio leading El Paso and Dallas/Ft. Worth for the highest concentration of heavy streamers at 43%, nearly 1 million adults. Not only is this well ahead of the near-33% of all heavy streaming adults for the U.S. in total, it's a group that's grown by 10% in the past six months, based on Nielsen Scarborough's trends.
Focusing on the San Antonio market, heavy streamers are above the market average for household income, net worth and home market value. While 35% fall in the Gen X (age 40-59) demographic and 33% in Gen Y/Millennial (age 25-39), the latter group over-indexes against the market as a whole (27%). Heavy streamers in the market are 28% more likely to own mobile devices, computers, and smart TVs.
San Antonio heavy streamers' website and app usage shows high-indexing for advertisers such as Groupon, ZipRecruiter, Zillow, Booking.com, and Etsy. These consumers spent an average of $1,000 on internet purchases in the past year, overall having spent more than $1 billion, up 24% from the previous year, with groceries and men's and women's clothing among the items most purchased online.
As to media consumption, San Antonio's heavy streamers index highest in their use of digital video display, Internet, out-of-home and radio. Four in 10 (39%) are also podcast listeners, while 65% have listened to an online music service, 34% to an Internet radio service such as iHeartRadio, and 26% to a local radio station online, in the past 30 days.
Specific to AM/FM radio, heavy streamers in the market are 13% more likely to listen to 55 or more quarter-hours (or 13.7 hours) of AM/FM radio in the past week, with a fairly even distribution across contemporary music formats.