Yes, it’s true. TV eyeballs are declining amongst Gen Zs.
Yet, you probably didn’t know that the generation’s most popular TV streaming service still reels in almost a third of them on a regular basis.
You gotta hand it to this network. Because in our What Gen Z Actually Do Online report, it’s clear that young people would generally rather be engaging on social media, listening to music, playing video games, and bingeing on video streaming services like Netflix, Disney and Stan.
Fair enough. They’ve got a world of content choice at their fingertips. And for most free-to-air TV, why would they sit through bombardments of irrelevant ads?
But “a third” is a considerable portion. So, everyone, a round of applause to Gen Z’s most popular network…
Pull the poppers. Release the confetti. It’s…
9Now!
Comparing Australia’s five big networks, 32% of Gen Zs told us they view 9Now regularly, followed by 7Plus (27%), 10Play (19%), ABC iView (19%) and SBS on Demand (16%).
FYI, 46% said they don’t ever tune in to TV catch-up streaming services.
Interestingly, when we look at figures on these services for the wider Australian population from Roy Morgan released in 2021, the rankings are almost the other way around.
Across Australia, their report named the two government-funded networks as the winners. ABC iView is “the clear market leader” with 5.13 million views and SBS on Demand with 4.08 million. Then came the three traditional commercial networks 7Plus at 2.68 million, 9Now at 2.48 million and 10Play at 2.29 million.
It’s good to note that both reports covered periods during the Covid-19 pandemic, with numbers likely to be influenced by nationwide lockdowns.
Nonetheless, 9Now, with its five distinct channels Nine, 9Gem, 9Go!, 9Rush and 9Life, has an edge over the others for Gen Zs.
Australia’s Compare TV reviewed 9Now as “home to the most extensive range of popular reality shows” compared to its network competitors and that its “the streaming quality is brilliant, easily the best out of all five networks”.