Disney an early winner as Americans are stuck indoors amid coronavirus pandemic
Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal breaks down how the coronavirus has impacted streaming as Netflix, Disney+ and other platforms capitalize on the coronavirus quarantine.
Video Transcript
ZACK GUZMAN: We have seen shares in Netflix been able to buck that overall downtrend. They're down about 3% today. But year to date still up by about 8%. And a lot of that has to do with the way that Americans are continuing to binge a lot of shows out there, as more workers stay at home. And I want to bring on Alexander Canal for our weekly Fame and Fortune segment to dig into what people have been watching on the platform. And, Ali, myself, I watched all "Tiger King" in one day. So I assume that would be up there.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Oh, yeah, "Tiger King" is the show that everyone seems to be talking about right now. And analytics platform EDO, Inc. actually dug into the numbers a little bit to see what that cumulative search engagement rate of "Tiger King" was compared to other shows and programs throughout the years. And you'll see that "Tiger King" is just far and above the competition. And what this cumulative search engagement rate shows is just the overall interest in a particular show or program.
And if you want to compare streamer to streamer here, exactly one year prior to Tiger King's release was the release of Hulu's "The Act." Now, this was a very popular mini series, starred Patricia Arquette, went on to win an Emmy. And just to put this in perspective, "Tiger King" generated 2.4 times the search engagement then "The Act" did in 2019 with virtually no advertising, no promotions, leading up to the launch.
So that is incredibly impressive. And it's continuing to gain that momentum. It's currently in its 12th day of being the number one show on Netflix's top 10 list. And it looks like that momentum is not going to slow down according to seven-part data. About 9% of Netflix viewers actually watch "Tiger King" for the month of March.
Now, that is still behind "Ozark" and "The Office." But if you think about when "Tiger King" was released at the very end of the month, and it was able to gain that much traction and viewership, it's feeding the beast here, if you will. No pun intended.
ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE] it's impressive just because you're right. I mean, it's only 10 days to work with their-- overall. But each one of these things, I mean, it's smart of you to be comparing them to those other platforms too, because each time Netflix does post a show like this that takes over the Twitter sphere, what everyone's talking about it, it does support the idea-- even without marketing there-- it does support the idea that it is a platform where you would want to attract all these creators because you throw something on Netflix-- they have the base there to clearly show that your piece can take off here.
And that's exactly what we saw with "Tiger King," something nobody heard about before. And now we're seeing that play out. I mean, I don't think it's surprising to see Netflix catching a boost yet.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: No, and we're in quarantine right now. There's nothing to do but sit on your couch and watch movies or TV shows. So we've seen that at-home consumption completely balloon in this time period. And if you take a look at streaming across the United States as a whole, this is pretty interesting. It's not Netflix that's really in the lead here. It's Disney Plus.
So according to analytics firm EDO, Inc., they did a survey. And about a fifth of respondents said they added a new platform since quarantine began with 29% going with Disney Plus. That was closely followed by Hulu at 21%, another Disney-owned property. And Netflix was in the middle of the pack there at around 15%.
Now, you can assume that because Netflix is the leader in this space, people probably already had Netflix leading into the quarantine. But it does go to show how well-positioned Disney Plus is moving forward, especially in the United States. Now, if we look on a more global level, Netflix is still in the lead here. It has the most downloads out of any other app in the first quarter of 2020-- over $59 million crushing the competition.
But it is interesting to know that in terms of the amount of hours spent on an app, that didn't go to Netflix or Disney Plus. That actually went to YouTube Kids, which saw a stream of users after all those school cancellations in March. So I think there's a lot happening in this space right now. And it's going to continue to gain that traction, continue to gain that audience demand.
HBO, yesterday, said that starting today, they will be releasing over 500 hours of free programming. That includes access to shows, like "The Sopranos," "Succession," "The Wire," "Veep." And it's because we're in this moment now, where you have a lot of eyeballs. And it would be stupid for you not to take advantage, especially when you're the leader in this industry right now that's suffering overall.
ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, get them hooked on the free content now. and then hope that-- or start paying later on. And I'm not surprised to see the kids stuff catching on either. So many parents out there just saying, you know what. I'm just going to put the screen in front of them. I know it might not be good, but I'm going to do it anyways and have them watch this.
But for now, Alexandra Canal, thank you so much for highlighting that. And we'll, of course, be returning to re-watch "Tiger King" later on in the show--