Ad-supported tiers are growing in the United States, surpassing 100 million subscribers, according to the latest research from Ampere Analysis. Currently, Hulu, Peacock and Paramount+ represent the bulk of subscriptions. However, uptake is growing for players like Netflix, driven in no small part by its account-sharing crackdown, and for Disney+, which increased its price alongside launching the ad tier.
Ampere Analysis revealed that, currently, more than 1 million Netflix accounts in the United States are on the ad-supported tier, representing nearly 2% of the entire subscriber base, whilst around 800.000 Disney+ accounts are on the ad-supported tier, representing around 2% of its subscriber base.
Prior to the launch of Max, Discovery+ had in the region of 10 million ad-supported accounts, while HBO Max had around 2 million. At the same time, Ampere expects that more than 90% of Hulu subscribers are on the ad-supported tier, representing around 45 million subscriptions. Hulu launched as an ad-supported subscription service in 2010, before launching its ad-free tier in 2015.
Meanwhile, Peacock has the most ad-supported subscribers of any new OTT service in the United States, with more than 30 million ad-supported subscribers. Paramount+ is not far behind Peacock, with more than 25 million ad-supported subscribers to its service in the United States.
Ampere Analysis expects that ad-supported subscription tiers in the United States will generate more than US$10 billion in advertising revenue in 2027. “Hybrid services are an increasingly important element of streaming service monetization, and hybrid tiers often generate more revenue per subscription than their ad-free counterparts – a key reason why Netflix has begun to remove the option for new subscribers to take the ad-free basic tier in many of its markets. The tiers also represent a way for consumers to maintain a wider array of subscriptions while economic times remain tough,” the company said.