[This piece is a version of one of the weekly EL PAÍS Television newsletter issues, which is released every Thursday. If you want to subscribe, you can do so through this link].
Read more Shakes that “replace a meal” impact our relationship with what we eat
What are the viewers of the platforms like? The opacity of these companies means there are no public figures on their users in Spain nor on the audience of their programs (except for Netflix’s global data) nor, of course, information about what their audience is like. But thanks to an exclusive report prepared for EL PAÍS by GfK DAM, the official digital consumption meter in Spain, we can draw some curious conclusions.
Last May, more than 28.8 million people accessed some streaming platform, that is, 69% of the population with internet access (YouTube is excluded from this measurement). Of these, 14.27 million were women and 14.56 million were men, so there is almost parity. Where there is more difference is in the time they invest on the platforms: while women spent an average of seven hours and 47 minutes per month, men used video platforms an average of six hours and 19 minutes, so women use them more intensively than men. By age, the largest group is 45 to 54 years old, while Generation Z is the one that dedicates the most time, an average of eight hours and 27 minutes per person per month. It is not surprising that Sunday is the preferred day to use them and that the time slot with the most activity is from 7 pm to midnight.
June data allows us to discover details about the viewers of each service, data conditioned by the World Cup broadcast. According to GfK DAM records, Netflix was the service that added the most unique users, a total of 14.5 million (35% of the internet population). In addition, it is the platform where its users spend the most time, with an average of four hours and six minutes monthly. It is followed by Prime Video, with 12.8 million unique users. In June, the third place on the list was occupied by RTVE Play, which thanks to the World Cup experienced great growth: from just over six million unique users in May to almost eight million in June. It surpassed Movistar Plus, which had 6.7 million users in June; however, this one achieved second place in time spent by its viewers, a monthly average of three hours and 12 minutes.
Then comes Disney+ with 6.4 million unique users. Next, DAZN also rose strongly, going from about 4.5 million in May to 6.1 million in June. HBO Max and Atresplayer exceed four million unique users, Mediaset Infinity was close with 3.8 million, and 3Cat closes the table of platforms measured by GfK DAM with two million. Others like Filmin, SkyShowtime, or Apple TV do not appear because their audiences are much lower, according to the company.
If the data is observed by gender, Prime Video is the most gender-balanced platform of all, almost 50%. In the cases of Netflix, Disney+, and HBO Max, the difference between sexes is slight, but there are more women on Netflix (54.6%) and Disney+ (53.6%), while men lead on HBO Max (53.5%). The difference was much more marked in June on RTVE Play (60.4% men) and DAZN (69.4%). Although DAZN is always the most male platform, the case of RTVE Play seems linked to the World Cup. The football championship may also have influenced Movistar Plus having 56% male users in June.
There is also information about the distribution of the audience by age. The bulk of Netflix customers are between 25 and 54 years old (they make up 51.2% of Netflix’s total users), with the 45 to 54 age group ahead of the rest (19%). Prime Video has a very similar age distribution, slightly above Netflix in the audience over 65 years old. The older age group stands out on RTVE Play. Most of the public broadcaster’s platform audience is over 45 years old (56.4% of the total), and 17.6% of its users are over 65 years old. Movistar Plus has an even older audience: those over 45 years old are 58% of its users, with the 45 to 54 group leading (21.9%). It is the platform with the most audience over 65 years old.
On the other hand, logically, Disney+ has a strong child audience and has the highest percentage of users between 4 and 15 years old, 11.1% of its total, and the lowest share of those over 65 years old, only 6.9%. However, the age group with the most audience on Disney+ is between 25 and 54 years old (54.6%). DAZN, boosted by the World Cup, stands out in the older age groups: 53% of its users are over 45 years old. HBO Max, on the other hand, stands out among 25 to 54 years old, where it has 53.1% of its viewers, with the 25 to 34 age group as the most prominent (18.6%).
