Streaming viewership on smart TVs spiked by 157% in Q4 ’20 vs. Q4 ’19, according to Conviva’s latest State of Streaming report. Smart TV’s growth far outpaced all other device types and was followed by tablets (up 47%), connected TV devices (up 38%), desktop (up 27%), smartphones (up 19%) and gaming consoles (up 16%). Overall time spent streaming rose by 44% in Q4 ’20 vs. Q4 ’19.

TVs were the big winner in Q4 ’20 with 75% of all time spent streaming accounted for by smart TVs, connected TV devices and gaming consoles combined, up from 71% in Q4 ’19. Smart TVs’ share increased from 9% to 17% in the quarter, while CTV devices dropped from 51% to 49% and gaming consoles dropped from 11% to 9%.

Roku remained the top brand for TV streaming, with a 31% share of streaming time, followed by Amazon Fire TV (19%), Samsung (11%), PlayStation (6%), Xbox and Apple TV (each with 6%) and LG, Chromecast and Android TV (each with 5%). On a per play basis, Chromecast had the longest watch time, with 35.5 minutes, followed by Roku with 33.3 minutes.

The increase in streaming time and proliferation of AVOD services led to a 34% increase in ad attempts and a 31% increase in ad impressions. Ad length increased by 12% in Q4 ’20, to 31.5 seconds, vs. Q3 ’20, as more 60 second ads ran.

Conviva also highlighted YouTube’s growth across four categories of viewership, entertainment, media, brands and sports. Among Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, YouTube was the only platform to increase its audience as a percentage of total social audience for all categories.

As always, Conviva’s report has tons of great data on quality of video delivered by device type, social trends, engagement and pandemic viewing. The full report can be downloaded here.

Conviva’s data is collected from its sensor technology embedded in 3.3 billion streaming video applications, measuring 500 million+ unique viewers in 180 countries.