According to a special “Streaming Wars” edition of the Nielsen Total Audience Report, which serves as the industry’s premiere source of media truth across platforms, people and devices, consumers in OTT-capable homes are spending nearly one-fifth (19%) of their TV time streaming content, be it through ad-supported or paid subscription models. Netflix accounted for 31% of this time, followed by YouTube (21%), Hulu (12%) and Amazon (8%).
That’s a hefty amount of the already large media diet of audiences today, especially considering that the medium has only existed for a relatively short period of time. Not to mention, it’s a prime opportunity to easily reach consumers in the digital age, using interfaces that feel familiar and comfortable to them.
The report also notes that 60% of Americans subscribe to more than one paid video streaming service. Better still—especially for platforms entering the streaming market—is that 93% of U.S. consumers say they will either increase or keep their existing streaming services.
A consumer that doesn’t place cost as an important virtue is rare, and that’s no different in the streaming world. According to survey respondents, price is the most vital attribute for a quality streaming service. This puts the impetus on platforms to satisfy customers’ return on investment while being affordable enough for the rest of their media habits. In fact, when asked about what made them cancel a paid video subscription service, 42% said they didn’t use it enough to justify the cost.
User-friendly interactivity plays a key role for streaming services and ranked second in consumer importance. Frustrating user experiences or hard to navigate interfaces may not bode well when it comes to subscriber retention, especially when the internet has cultivated a culture of convenience and consumers have a bevy of other media choices available to them. Of course, content is also of major importance for consumers, as the variety and availability of it placed in the top three of video streaming attributes.
While there’s myriad attributes that make a streaming service attractive to users, the content is what ultimately gets them to type out their credit card number and hit “Enter.” The top four reasons as to why survey participants decided to subscribe to additional streaming services were all content-based, with the top reason being to expand the content that they had available.
Nielsen's report remarks that, while content has always been king, with the growth of streaming video content creators and rights owners have more power. "Platforms should be able to keep the programs that the public wants and, at the same time, offer new and attractive ones to keep them interested. Wherever good content goes, subscribers will follow it. When that content runs out, don't be surprised. when some of the subscribers also do it: 20% of the consulted consumers affirmed that they canceled the contracted service after seeing all the content of their interest ". He maintains, while warning that if they do not continue to evolve or expand their content libraries, consumers could replace them.