All the research showing that consumers would like to see their streaming services bundled together seems to have gotten the attention of streaming media executives. A new survey of over 100 executives at leading music, video, and multi-service content providers by Bango is reporting that 81% of streaming executives believe that “super bundling” is the future for their industry and 93% of those executives say having all subscriptions on one bill is the biggest benefit.
Super bundling refers to a business model that provides integrated management of subscriptions through a centralized content hub, delivered through aggregators like telcos.
A variety of research surveys have found that the complexities of finding content on different streaming services and the difficulties of managing multiple streaming subscriptions has increased churn and prompted consumers to tell researchers that they would like a more unified platform for accessing content.
The new Bango survey also examined some of the key reasons why streaming executives are embarrassing the bundling model, with over two-thirds of subscription leaders citing ‘new customer acquisition’ (73%) closely followed by ‘reducing churn’ (68%).
The survey found that more than three out of five subscription leaders agree that subscription services should be bundling their services with content providers from other industries (69%); super bundling content hubs will be a vital revenue source for subscription services in the future (66%); and that super bundling content hubs will offer a strong competitive advantage for subscription services (65%).
Over half of these executives (53%) said that super bundling will play a vital role in their future customer acquisition and retention strategies. Some go as far to say that not pursuing Super Bundling could be damaging, with almost a third (31%) warning of potential revenue and market share loss for those that don’t adapt quickly enough, the researchers said.
When asked who they might select as bundling partners, communications service providers dominated, with 60% of subscription leaders citing satellite/cable providers as most effective, followed by broadband (56%) and cell phone companies (56%).
The survey also found that streaming executives see a number of challenges in implementing the idea. Three out of five (61%) reported that their core challenge when bundling subscriptions is the complexity of managing multiple partners.
When trying to achieve this through reseller partners such as telcos, more than half report that the top challenges they face in partnering effectively are technical integration issues (64%); complexity of contract negotiations (63%); time-consuming onboarding processes (52%)
More information about Bango, super bundling and the full report can be found here.
