American Teens Call YouTube, Not Netflix, Their Top Daily Streaming Destination (Survey)

A semi-annual study by investment bank Piper Jaffray has concluded, for the first time, that YouTube is the most favored platform by American teens when it comes to their daily video-streaming destination. YouTube (chosen by 37% of the teens surveyed in the study) beat out Netflix (35%) for the first time. Piper Jaffray’s so-called Taking Stock With Teens survey has been conducted 38 times over the past 19 years.

Teens narrowly selected YouTube as the victor because of its diverse content library, CNBC reports, including its endless array of music videos, ‘Let’s Play’ gaming walkthroughs, how-to videos, and first-person vlogs. The fact that YouTube is free also likely impacted the outcome to some extent. That said, Netflix — which has long held the top spot, per Piper Jaffrey — did substantially outrank paid competitors like Hulu (which 7% of teens surveyed chose as their top streaming destination) and Amazon Prime (3%). Interestingly, cable TV ranked above both Hulu and Amazon as the top choice of 12% of respondents.

Other findings in this year’s Taking Stock survey include teens’ top five influencers (David Dobrik, Kylie Jenner, Donald Trump, PewDiePie, and Emma Chamberlain), as well as their top five social media platforms (Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest). Though this year’s survey also “saw an acceleration of VSCO and TikTok mentions,” notes Erinn Murphy, a senior research analyst at the bank.

The 38th semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey involved 9,500 U.S. teens across 42 U.S. states with an average age of 15.8 and an average household income of $65,400. The study looked at numerous views on today’s media landscape as well as shopping habits, food predilections, and more.