Increased smart TV affordability, improved performance, and improved streaming consumption experiences have all collectively added to smart TVs’ consumer appeal in recent history. Though both smart TVs and streaming media players have grown in adoption and importance, smart TVs are increasingly the streaming video device that services and developers should consider the most commonly owned within US broadband households.

According to Parks Associates research of 10,000 internet households, 60% now own a smart TV, up from 38% in 2015. Consumers’ usage of devices to consume different types of OTT services, confirms the significant role that smart TVs have taken in household content consumption.

Parks Associates research finds that while streaming media players (SMPs) and service provider set-top boxes surpass smart TVs for overall hourly usage per week, smart TVs are the device with the most balanced usage of all streaming video devices across service provider viewing, SVOD, and AVOD. This indicates that smart TVs are seeing broader universal acceptance as a viable consumption device for all mainstream OTT service types, compared to other streaming video devices in the home.

Thanks to the smart TV’s rise to become the focal point of content aggregation and consumption in the home, smart TV platform owners are gradually experiencing a shift in power in their direction, and away from traditional pay TV service providers, set-top box manufacturers, audience measurement vendors, and ad insertion solution providers.

This is an excerpt from Parks Associates research library, built over almost forty years of studying the consumer technology markets. For information on our research and marketing products and services, visit www.parksassociates.com. We love comments and feedback on our research.

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