We examine the impact of top-of-screen promotions on viewing time at ABEMA, a leading video streaming platform in Japan. To this end, we conduct a large-scale randomized controlled trial. Given the non-standard distribution of user viewing times, we estimate distributional treatment effects. Our estimation results document that spotlighting content through these promotions effectively boosts user engagement across diverse content types. Notably, promoting short content proves most effective in that it not only retains users but also motivates them to watch subsequent episodes.

翻译：本研究考察了屏幕顶部推广对日本领先视频流媒体平台ABEMA用户观看时长的影响。为此，我们开展了一项大规模随机对照试验。鉴于用户观看时长呈现非标准分布特征，我们估计了分布处理效应。估计结果表明，通过此类推广突出展示内容能有效提升用户对不同内容类型的参与度。值得注意的是，推广短内容效果最为显著，不仅能留住用户，还能促使其观看后续剧集。