As more companies shift towards offering ad-supported streaming tiers, the presence of ads on streaming services remains a deeply polarizing subject.
A significant majority of consumers (59%) say they would be willing to watch ads if it saves them $4 to $5 a month in subscription fees while large numbers of streamers (41%) say they would pay an extra $4 to $5 a month to avoid ads, according to the June survey by Hub Entertainment Research.
The number is up slightly from the 57% willing to endure ads to save money in December of 2022 but is remarkably similar to the 58%/42% split two years ago in the June of 2021 survey.
That would indicate attitudes towards advertising on streaming haven’t undergone a notable shift since companies began making advertising a major part of their streaming strategies in the hope of staunching large streaming losses.
The survey also found that a significant number of consumers who had settled on subscribing to a tier with ads subsequently decided to go back to an ad free tier.
The June Hub survey found that more than one in four streaming subscribers had switched between ad-free and ad-supported tiers and that 60% of those who switched moved from an ad-supported tier to the ad free option.
In contrast, 46% of those who switched reported that they had downgraded from an ad-free tier to an ad-supported tier.
Among the switchers, 39% said they’d moved to an ad-free tier because there were too many ads and 36% said they’d moved to an ad-supported option to save money.
About one third of those surveyed (33%) said they hadn’t switched because they wanted to avoid ads. But more than one quarter (27%) said they would switch to an ad-supported option if they could save 30% to 50% of their subscription price.
The amount of ads was also a significant issue. The survey found that the tipping point for consumers considering whether a service offered a “reasonable” ad load was 11 ads per half hour and ad breaks that were longer than 90 seconds.
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