While the emergence of social video and YouTube in the living room has challenged the notion of what is “television,” the basic act of consuming video keeps expanding.
According to Activate Consulting’s latest deep dive and 2026 forecast into American media-tech consumption and habits, U.S. consumers will spend, on average, six hours and 33 minutes a day in 2029 on streaming video, social video and traditional TV, vs. six hours and 12 minutes this year. Among those, streaming video will represent the largest growth area, Activate said, expanding from a current estimated level of 3 hours and 12 minutes per day, on average, to 4:08 in four years. That’s a 7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) across the forecast period.
It’s important to note that Activate includes YouTube in the “streaming video” category and excludes the Google-owned platform from “social video,” with virtual MVPDs also excluded from “streaming” and instead included in the “Traditional TV” category.
Over that same four-year span, average daily time spent with traditional linear television in the U.S. is forecast to decline at a negative 10% CAGR.
In 2025, Activate estimates, the U.S. streaming industry will generate $91 billion across subscription and advertising revenue. Aggregate spending on video, adding in social video and traditional TV, is expected to reach $281 billion.
Streaming (including paid and free ad-supported) is now the preferred video consumption platform across generations, Activate said, with 43% of Gen Z denizens citing YouTube as their most preferred viewing platform.
Activate, which partners with Nielsen, among other third-party firms, on its research, describes an increasingly competitive landscape for total U.S. video consumption, with “streaming-native” companies — i.e. YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and Roku — now controlling 36% of viewership.
Activate, meanwhile, also pondered the fast-growing U.S. live-sports market. Not surprisingly, on graph in the firm's report shows the NFL as the undisputed leader in “fans” — defined as someone 18 years or older, who has attended at least one live game in the last year or has at least watched one game or its highlights on television. Perhaps of more surprise: Major League Baseball’s commanding fan advantage over the NBA, as well as the absence of the NHL (although the report separately notes consumers can now stream local games of almost every NHL team).
Also elegantly showcased in the report is the migration of U.S. professional sports from the pay TV ecosystem. Per Activate, only a handful of MLB, NBA and NHL teams have their local games shown exclusively on regional sports networks now. Most teams now offer a direct-to-consumer streaming alternative.
As mentioned, Activate’s 250-page “Technology & Media Outlook 2026” is vast, covering a range of consumer activities that only start with video, gaming and social. But here’s a nugget an interesting nugget: With U.S. consumers doubling up on media-tech behaviors including social media usage, video game playing, music listening and streaming-video viewing — i.e. “multi-tasking”— the average U.S. adult time spent on technology and media consumption per day was over 13 hours in 2024.
With multi-tasking and other consumer behaviors Activate forecasts U.S. adult consumers will spend an additional 15 minutes each day with tech and media by 2029, largely driven by increased time with video. Time spent with video at large (which again includes YouTube), is predicted to expand from an average of 5 hours and eight minutes as of 2025 to five hours and 25 minutes by the end of 2029 – or 17 more minutes spent with video.
