Roku’s audience is a joyful collection of people who represent all ages, backgrounds, and interests—and it’s getting bigger.
As of the end of 2022, Roku’s active accounts had grown 16% year over year to 70 million.¹ Our audience ranges in age from young Gen Z adults looking for low-cost entertainment to Baby Boomers who turned to TV streaming during the pandemic and never left.
To help our advertisers and partners better understand this growing population of streamers, we decided to wrangle some key insights about our audience in one place. In this piece we will examine not only who the Roku audience is, but also what they stream and what media behaviors they exhibit when not streaming.
Who’s watching
One in 3 active Roku households in the US includes a member of Gen Z, which is also the second largest generation, representing 40% of global consumers in 2020. Gen Z can be considered the world’s first TV streaming generation. They have never known a world without TV streaming.
That’s just how Gen Z prefers to consume content.
- Seventy-six percent watch video on demand streaming channels on connected TVs, while only 28% watch live TV on cable.
- Gen Z streams more TV than other groups, with nearly half spending at least 2 hours streaming content each day.²
With Gen Z having significantly less buying power than older generations, they’re attracted to the value, affordability, and low barrier to entry of Roku devices. In fact, Roku is the No. 1 device and smart TV OS for Gen Z.³
At the other end of Roku’s audience spectrum are people over 50, who are now the primary driver of TV streaming audience growth.
- Those aged 50-plus represent nearly 40% of streaming watch time as of May 2022, which is growing faster than other age groups.⁴
- 55% of 50-and-older households who own a Roku device don’t pay for traditional TV, but even those that do still spend the majority of their viewing time—56%— streaming.⁵
As every generation migrates to TV streaming, they become more unreachable on linear TV. Case in point: A pharma brand targeting consumers 45 and older found that 75% of the TV streaming viewers it was able to reach on Roku could not have been reached through linear TV.⁶ That makes TV streaming a critical tool for advertisers in health, travel, and other verticals focused on audiences within this age group.
What they’re watching
Our audience wants to consume content that reflects their diverse interests, backgrounds, and voices. They are quickly making The Roku Channel one of streaming TV’s hottest hubs for free and premium entertainment. It’s a Top 5 channel by active account reach and streaming hour engagement. In the last year, we’ve introduced new Roku Originals such as “The Great American Baking Show,” “Martha Gardens,” and “Emeril Cooks.” In September, we were excited for The Roku Channel to premier its first original movie, “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” The satirical biopic starring Daniel Radcliffe was a huge hit with our audience (and critics)—and the most-watched on-demand program in The Roku Channel’s history.⁷
But our viewers come to Roku for more than laughs. Viewers 50 and older are particularly attracted to home and garden shows, Westerns, and medical dramas.⁸ Food and sports programming has also enjoyed significant growth across The Roku Channel and other streaming platforms. For example, more people than ever streamed the most recent Big Game. TV streaming reach on Roku grew 18% for the game compared to 2022, and the number of hours streamed also climbed 10%.⁹ About 12% of Roku households that watched the Big Game on linear in 2022 streamed it instead this year.¹⁰
Live events such as awards programs are also drawing greater numbers of Roku households. Roku’s streaming rate for the Oscars jumped 24% this year.¹¹ And adults under 50 watched 43% of the total Oscars hours via TV streaming this year, up dramatically from only 10% in 2019.¹² Oscar streamers were more likely to be younger and have higher household incomes than linear TV viewers. And many who streamed the Oscars also tuned into the Grammys and Golden Globes, making awards programming a significant advertising opportunity for brands seeking to reach Roku’s audience.
How they’re engaging
TV streamers are moving through a growing number of channels as they follow content across their streaming platforms. The average Roku household watched nearly seven channels in Q4 of 2022, up from just 5.3 in 2020.¹³
Not only are Roku viewers engaging with more channels, but they are also using more devices while streaming—often at the same time. Second screening is second nature to our audience, especially younger members. Nearly 80% of Gen Z multitasks while streaming, including surfing the web or checking in on social media.¹⁴ We’re currently working with Microsoft Advertising to study how Roku TV ads affect online searches and browsing behavior, but early tests have found that TV streaming ads delivered on Roku drive a greater number of users to search for brands online after exposure compared to linear TV ads.¹⁵
Gen Z, in particular, is very receptive to advertising compared to other generations, especially when there is a clear value exchange, such as watching ads to access free content. They’re also likely to remember the brands in the ads and consider buying their products. One in 3 Gen Z streamers also wants to interact with ads through streaming devices, which makes shoppable ads and promotions with QR codes an excellent opportunity for brands.¹⁶
Streaming and gaming are extremely symbiotic. Our audience loved watching “The Last of Us” on Roku, for example, and they also enjoyed playing the video game that inspired the show. After its premier, Roku streamers were more likely to play the game on their Roku TVs and Sony PlayStations, with a 77% increase in gameplay among Roku streamers.¹⁷
Everything happens on Roku
We anticipate our audience will continue to grow larger and more diverse as Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers migrate to Roku. Once viewers leave linear TV, they aren’t looking back.
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²¯³ Luth Research, Profiling the Gen Z Consumer, May 2022
⁵ Roku Internal Data, 2022
⁶ Roku Internal Data, 2022 | Campaign Dates: Q2 2021
⁸ Roku Internal Data, 2022
⁹¯¹⁰ Roku Internal Data, 2023 | Estimates that are based on data collected from users who consented to the collection of this data. Includes viewing data for all the channels that streamed the Super Bowl during gameplay including Peacock, vMVPDs (i.e. YouTube TV, Hulu Live, etc), and MVPDs (i.e. Spectrum TV, Xfinity Stream, etc). As a result, some streamers may have been watching other programming on these channels at time of game play.
¹¹¯¹² Roku Internal Data, 2023
¹³ Roku Internal Streaming Data
¹⁴ Luth Research, Profiling the Gen Z Consumer, May 2022
¹⁵ Microsoft + Roku Internal Data | 21-day lookback window pre/post exposure
¹⁶ Luth Research, Profiling the Gen Z Consumer, May 2022
¹⁷ Roku Internal ACR + Search Data, 2023 | Gameplay defined as the number of Roku households that played ”The Last of Us” on a Roku TV from December 2022 to March 2023
