NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y.—Faced with rising costs for streaming services, fragmented content offerings and the difficulty of navigating a sea of different apps, streamers seem to be looking for a modern iteration of an old idea—the pay bundle—to improve the user experience.
A fascinating new study from Horowitz Research found that six in 10 (61%) streamers would be likely to switch to a bundle of subscription streaming services from one provider if this option were available.
“The recent announcement of Verizon’s +play bundle with Netflix, Paramount+, and Showtime id an example of where this industry has to go to meet the needs of consumers and help stabilize churn” notes Adriana Waterston, chief revenue officer and insights & strategy lead for Horowitz Research. “But this is just the beginning. We know what consumers really want are universal and integrated menus, programming guides, and recommendation/search functionalities, which will mitigate the challenges of content discovery in today’s fragmented media environment. In short, we are seeing renewed demand for a multichannel, managed services solution in the streaming ecosystem.”
Horowitz Research latest State of Media, Entertainment & Tech: Viewing Behaviors 2023 report also found that U.S. streamers use an average 6.4 services in a typical month, which includes an average of 3.8 paid and 2.6 free services.
Netflix commands the largest share of streaming among TV content viewers (18% of self-reported viewing time, down from 32% of self-reported viewing time reported five years ago in the 2019 report), followed by Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, and YouTube TV. SVOD services overall command about 6 in 10 streamed viewing hours.
While not approximating the share of viewing that SVODs command, the study also underscores the growth in usage of AVOD/FAST channels among streamers. One in four hours of self-reported share of viewing is now spent with one of the many free, ad-supported services.
When asked which providers they would consider for a streaming bundle, consumers overwhelmingly preferred doing this kind of business with an internet/MVPD provider, with Amazon also a major contender.
The full State of Viewing and Streaming 2023 report explores how viewers are navigating the increasingly complex viewing ecosystem that includes traditional MVPDs, vMVPDs, SVODs, AVOD, FAST, and OTA content.
The survey was conducted in April 2023 among 2,200 TV content viewers 18+. Data have been weighted to ensure results are representative of the overall TV universe. The report is available in total market, FOCUS Latinx, FOCUS Black, and FOCUS Asian editions.
More information on the study is available here.
