Study: Pandemic speeded trends away from live TV viewing

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated trends in how people are watching television differently

NEW YORK -- The pandemic accelerated changes in how people use their televisions, further reducing the dominance in traditional live viewing of what networks are showing, a new study has found. Nearly two-thirds of people said in June that they viewed free video on demand content on their televisions once a week, up from 46% in February 2020, according to Hub Entertainment Research. Hub also found that 39% of people said they paid to watch a movie at least once a week, and 39% also said they paid to watch a TV show. In both cases, that doubled the percentage of people who said the same thing before the COVID-19 shutdown. “People had a lot more time so they had a vacuum to fill,” said Jon Giegengack, Hub principal and founder. “The people who didn't get laid off had more money to spend.”