Netflix tops streaming rivals in reliability, finds study

Netflix subscribers run into fewer service problems, new study finds

Following shelter-at-home orders, more people today are subscribed to Netflix than ever. Even so, a new study by American-based data analytics company, JD Power (via Bloomberg), finds that Netflix viewers are facing the least number of service problems than viewers of other streaming platforms.

The report, which surveyed 1,232 U.S. adults in late April, states that Netflix subscribers ran into about 0.7 streaming glitches per hour watched — followed by Hulu and Amazon Prime Video’s score of 0.11. Disney+ and Google’s YouTube TV, both of which are relatively new services, landed on the 4th and 5th spots at 0.12 and 0.13 respectively.

Under lockdown, it was expected streaming services would bear the heaviest brunt of the increased internet traffic. However, JD Power says they performed fairly well in the research.

To allay the network overload worries, nearly all of the streamers including YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix had agreed to restrict bandwidth and streaming quality in select European regions and India. Those restrictions are now gradually being lifted, too.

Netflix’s figures are especially remarkable given how rapidly it’s gaining new subscribers. Earlier in April, the company announced about 16 million people signed up for its service in the first quarter — more than double the 7.2 million that was expected. “While our productions are largely paused around the world, we benefit from a large pipeline of content that was either complete and ready for launch or in post-production when filming stopped,” it wrote in a letter to shareholders.

Further, J.D. Power found that the American sitcom The Office was pushed to third place by two of Netflix’s original productions, Ozark and Tiger King. While The Office has always been Netflix’s most prized possession and still is its all-time most-watched show, it’s slated to leave for NBC’s own forthcoming streaming platform, Peacock.

Netflix’s hit documentary series Tiger King was streamed for at least two minutes by 64 million households in its first four weeks of release and is headed for a follow-up TV series which will reportedly star Nicholas Cage.

What’s more, when asked which platform would they pick if they could only have access to one, the majority of the survey’s respondents went with Netflix.

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