OTTAWA — Almost four in five English-speaking Canadians (77%) now subscribe or have access to at least one over-the-top streaming service, according to a new from the CBC’s Media Technology Monitor (MTM). For French-speaking Canadians, that number is 68%.
Among Anglophones, Netflix remains the most popular OTT service by a large margin, with two-thirds (67%) of English Canadians subscribing or having access to it, according to the survey. Almost half (49%) of Francophones subscribe or have access to Netflix.
The MTM study examines how Canadians engage with OTT services, differences among key demographics, and the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic on streaming service usage.
During the pandemic, Netflix also reported the highest level of daily use among its English subscribers (66%), ahead of Amazon Prime Video (45%), Disney+ (42%), Crave (41%) and Apple TV+ (29%). Among French Canadians, those daily use levels were: Netflix (67%), Disney+ (43%), Crave (43%), Apple TV+ (31%) and Amazon Prime Video (30%).
With more free time on their hands, one in four Anglophone OTT subscribers reported opting in for additional OTT services to have more content to watch while isolating at home. Twenty-three percent of French Canadians said they used additional OTT services during the pandemic. And according to the survey, OTT services focused on French-language content achieved unprecedented success, with Club illico subscriptions increasing by 17%, the largest seasonal increase to date.
After launching in late 2019, Disney+ and Apple TV+ have already found some notable success, says the MTM report. Twenty percent of English Canadian households and 13% of Francophone households subscribe or have access to Disney+, while 8% of English households and 5% of French households subscribe or have access to Apple TV+.
For more information about the MTM’s OTTs and Covid-19 report, please click here. A subscription is required to access the full report.
