While feature film viewing overall has remained relatively steady in Canada this year compared to last year, viewers are increasingly using Netflix to watch movies, a new report from Telefilm Canada has found.

The Audiences in Canada: Trend Report is the third such paper to be published by Telefilm Canada, which aims to look at why and how Canadians consume content, as well as their movie-going habits.

This year’s report found that 83% of Canadians subscribed to and used cable or satellite services to view films, representing a drop of 3% from the year prior. Slight declines were also seen in the number of respondents who said they use VOD services (42%), PVRs (52%) or specialty film channels (40%) to watch movies.

However, 41% of respondents said they use Netflix to watch films, up from 33% a year prior. Within the 15-to-34 demographic, nearly 60% of respondents said they used Netflix to watch films. When it comes to how many films they watch in a year, 59% of respondents said they watched the same amount of films in 2015 as 2014, with 21% saying they watched more films and 20% reported they watched fewer films. These figures were similar to what was reported in 2014’s study.

On the topic of where Canadians watch movies, 81% of respondents said the majority of their movie-watching happens at home, up 1% from the year prior. Sixteen per cent of respondents, meanwhile, said the majority of their movie watching happened in a cinema. Interestingly, respondents in the 14-to-17 demo said 21% of their film viewing happened in a theatre, followed by 17% for those aged 18-34 and 15% for those aged 35-54. Respondents over the age of 55 reported 14% of their film watching occurs in a cinema.

The majority of cinema ticket sales – 60% – are bought by those the report defined as “heavy moviegoers,” or those who have attended 10 or more movies within the past year. Overall, 28% of respondents said they went to the movies less this year than last year, with only 10% reporting going to the movies more often.

When it comes to how Canadians select which films to watch, the research found most potential viewers are influenced by widespread buzz and promotional efforts done outside of the theatre. Heavy film-viewers rank trailers as the most important factor used to determine which film to watch, followed by word of mouth, the internet, other advertising, reviews and box-office performance. As with past editions of the survey, the report found Canadians generally favour four broad genres of movies: comedies (7.6%), action/adventure (7.5%), mystery/detective movies (7.3%) and dramas (7.1%).

The audience report also looked at Canadians’ TV viewing habits. About 77% of respondents said they watched a TV show at least once a week, with 25% saying they watched more series this year than last year, compared to 21% of respondents who said they watched more feature films this year than the year prior.

Canadians most frequently used broadcast TV to watch series (at 118 times per year on average), but paid streaming viewing increased the most (47 times per year on average in 2015, compared to 34 times per year in 2014).

“Based on this, it is apparent that continuous-streaming services such as Netflix, Shomi, Illico Web and Crave TV are experiencing strong growth in the Canadian market,” the report reads. “Once again, the youngest segments stated that they were the heaviest users of these services (18-34 year-olds: 83 times per year; 15-17 year-olds: 68 times per year).”

– Image courtesy of Shutterstock