According to Future Lab data based on Mediascope Cross Web, Russians spent an average of 87.7 minutes per day watching video content in the first half of the year. This represents a 6% increase compared to the previous year. However, when excluding YouTube from the statistics, the total viewing time dropped by 5%.
YouTube itself demonstrated a significant recovery, with average daily viewing time rising by 24% to 99 minutes. This follows a 28.6% decline recorded in the previous year. Analysts suggest that the market has reached a peak, as growth in the prior two years was largely driven by users migrating from the throttled YouTube platform.
The performance of domestic platforms varied significantly. Rutube reported a 4.7% decline in viewing time to 41 minutes when including embedded views, though it noted a 9.5% increase to 62.8 minutes when excluding them. Rutube disputed the Future Lab methodology, citing a 9.1% growth based on Mediascope data.
VK reported a 65% increase in viewing time for its VK Video application, reaching nearly 100 minutes. Industry players like Wink, Yandex, and Start attribute shifts in consumption to changes in user behavior, the impact of mobile internet restrictions, and improvements in recommendation algorithms and content analysis.
