Consumers are creating their own bundles of video services, cobbling pay TV, streaming video and to access their favorite content, according to a new report from Deloitte. But with so many subscription OTT options now, consumers may be getting fatigued by too many choices.
Streaming video subscription services have jumped to 69% of U.S. households having at least one service and streaming music services have grown to 41% of the market, according to the research firm. Pay TV remained relatively flat with 65% of U.S. households subscribing, with 29% paying for live TV streaming services.
The dominant factor in video growth is high-quality, original content, according to Deloitte. Fifty-seven percent of current U.S. streaming consumers subscribing to streaming video services to access original content. The figure is higher for millennials – 71%
More than a third (37%) of U.S. millennials binge-watch every week, viewing four hours in a single sitting. Consumers use more streaming video from their paid services (46%) compared to free video streaming services (29%). Additionally, 70% of millennials stream movies weekly, with 40% doing so daily.
Subscription Fatigue
“With more than 300 over the top video options in the U.S., coupled with multiple subscriptions and payments to track and justify, consumers may be entering a time of ‘subscription fatigue,'” said Kevin Westcott, Deloitte LLP vice chairman and U.S. telecom and media and entertainment leader, in a prepared statement. “As media companies and content owners wrestle with how to retain and grow their subscriber base, they should not only continue to strengthen their content libraries, quality, distribution, and value but also keep a close eye on consumer frustrations, including advertising overload and data privacy concerns.”
Nearly half (47%) of subscribers report being frustrated by the sheer number of subscription services available to them, in effect forcing them to subscribe to multiple services to get the original content they want to watch. Content discovery is also a problem. Key findings include:
- Forty-three percent of consumers give up on the search for content, if they can’t find it in a few minutes;
- Forty-eight percent say content is hard to find across multiple services;
- Nearly half (49 percent) say the sheer amount of content available makes it hard to choose what to watch.
