Streaming TV service fuboTV saw a fairly dramatic rise in engagement from subscribers in December, an uptick the company largely credits to connected TV viewing.
The company said user engagement on fuboTV hit an all-time high in December 2018, up nearly 3x compared with December 2017. Connected TV usage drove the bulk of this engagement, exceeding 70 hours per subscriber in December, marking a nearly 2.5x increase year over year.
FuboTV said its users spent nearly 90 hours in December on the leading connected device in that category, and for the second consecutive year connected TVs were the most popular with fuboTV subscribers.
In addition to device usage statistics, fuboTV also released some data about the types of programming its subscribers are watching on connected TV devices. In December, entertainment was the most watched content type on these devices (47%), followed by sports (33%) and news/talk (20%). Those figures are somewhat surprising considering fuboTV’s positioning as a sports-first virtual MVPD.
“Fubo subscribers leaned into our innovative product launches and expanded programming last year spending significantly more time on the service,” said David Gandler, co-founder and CEO of fuboTV, in a statement. “Our record user engagement proves consumers crave the kind of premium viewing experience that only a total cable replacement product can offer.”
RELATED: FuboTV raising prices for legacy subscribers to streaming TV service
As engagement with the streaming TV platform is spiking for fuboTV, the service is also bringing its prices up for legacy subscribers to put them in line with what new subscribers pay. Earlier this month, the company confirmed that beginning in February legacy subscribers will see their monthly bills go up $10, matching what new subscribers have been paying since February 2018.
“FuboTV has adjusted the price of the Fubo base plan for legacy users to $44.99/month. This is in line with the fee already charged to new users, and simply means all Fubo package subscribers will pay the same monthly price,” said the company in a statement.
While it’s unclear how the price increase may impact subscriber growth for the service, recent disclosures show that fuboTV has been steadily growing while competing with larger vMVPDs such as Sling TV and DirecTV Now.
Late last year, fuboTV said it was approaching 250,000 subscribers and that it added 30,000 new subscribers in the third quarter of 2018. That total was up significantly from the 100,000 subscribers the service had in September 2017.