Streaming Platforms Play to Social for End-of-Year Viewership Gains
Tubular Labs found social viewership grow for Netflix and Peacock in December, 2023
Tubular Labs, the leader in global social video intelligence, released new December U.S. viewership trends from its Audience Ratings product – giving insight into deduplicated, unique viewership, and minutes watched for trending video categories, creators and more.
While streaming faced various challenges in 2023, several platforms closed the year with strong success. According to data from Tubular Labs, streaming giant, Netflix, saw 44.7 million U.S. viewers across Facebook and YouTube in December 2023. This figure represents a 40% increase versus November, 2023, and was its highest unique domestic viewership in over a year.
Content shared across social platforms like Facebook and YouTube to promote new arrivals contributed to this growth for Netflix. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley teaser, along with a Love Actually gift wrapping clip released on their social channels, in part to promote the movie’s addition to the streaming service’s offerings.
Peacock also grew its footprint in December, with 12% month-over-month unique U.S. viewer growth across Facebook and YouTube. That growth was in part fueled by Paris in Love trailers, and various #shorts.
Other top takeaways from recent Tubular research include:
Gaming Brand Content Scores With Fans
When it comes to gaming content, individual creators tend to dominate across social video. Yet in December, gaming brands themselves scored big wins with audiences by heading to Facebook and YouTube channels to generate excitement.
Data from Tubular Labs shows Rockstar Games swiped 168 million YouTube views for its Grand Theft Auto VI trailer, helping the studio grow U.S. minutes watched and unique viewers by 31x month-over-month… despite the game not coming out for another year.
Other gaming insights from Tubular’s Audience Ratings data include:
Nightcap Passes Up Sports’ Heaviest Hitters
Nightcap, hosted by Shannon Sharpe, Chad Ochocinco and Gilbert Arenas, has only been on YouTube for a few months. Yet, the conversation show is already one of the hottest sports channels across Facebook and YouTube right now.
Tubular Labs data shows that in December 2023, Nightcap earned 284 million U.S. minutes watched across Facebook and YouTube, which was up 125% month-over-month. The strong watch-time from its 6.1 million unique viewers put the show in the top 5 for sports creators during the month – ahead of ESPN. The show also had more minutes watched per unique viewer (46.7MM) for the month than all of its more high-profile peers.
Kids Entertainment Creators Clamor For Minutes Watched
“Ms. Rachel,” beloved by children and parents alike, has maintained her spot as the minutes watched leader across YouTube and Facebook in the kids entertainment category. December 2023 data from Tubular Labs shows that Ms. Rachel earned 1.9 billion U.S. minutes watched across YouTube and Facebook (making her the number 1 among all creators), but that was down 9% month-over-month.
The kids entertainment space remains a fierce competition between a handful of giants. Additional insights from Tubular Labs include:
To learn more about Tubular time of day measuring capabilities and other video insights, visit www.tubularlabs.com.
