75 Percent of Video Streaming Subscribers Don't Plan on Adding New Services
By Rob Marvin - PC Magazine
At what point will video streaming services reach market saturation? We'll soon find out which troves of content are the most enticing, how many monthly streaming subscriptions is too many, and which powerful players will win out over competitors for a consumer's monthly entertainment budget.
PCMag surveyed 1,001 US consumers who currently use streaming services about subscription and content preferences, viewing habits, and more. One of the most polarizing questions concerned all the new services entering the market and whether consumers think they're worth switching from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and the rest, or paying even more per month for streaming subscriptions.
Apple TV+ and Disney+ are debuting, while 2020 will bring HBO Max and NBCUniversal's Peacock, stocked both with originals as well as expensively licensed favorites like Friends and The Office. We asked respondents whether they plan to subscribe to any of these upcoming apps—and a whopping 75 percent of those currently using streaming services don't plan on subscribing to any of the newcomers.
Disney+ garnered the highest interest with 14 percent of streaming users planning to subscribe; the entertainment juggernaut has been stocking up on originals set in the Star Wars and Marvel universes, along with a deep catalog of movies, shows, and originals. Apple TV+ and HBO Max each notched 5 percent of respondents, with the rebranded AT&T TV Now at 3 percent and NBCUniversal at 2 percent. (Respondents could select as many answers that applied, hence the total of more than 100 percent.)
To make sense of the data, we sliced the results by a couple of factors including which current streaming services each respondent subscribes to. We found that around 15 percent of both Netflix and Amazon Prime Video subscribers and 18 percent of Hulu users plan to get Disney+, which will also come bundled with ESPN+ and Hulu for $12.99 a month.
Twenty percent of HBO Now users and almost 19 percent of CBS All Access users also plan on adding Disney+. We also found that only 11 percent of HBO Now users plan to subscribe to HBO Max, which will reportedly be more expensive than most other options at around $16-17 per month.
Apple TV+ and NBCUniversal were less popular across the board, but on the higher end we found that 5.5 percent of Hulu users and 8 percent of HBO Now users planned to subscribe to Apple's offering (which still doesn't have a price), while 5.6 percent of CBS All Access users plan to get Peacock.
Most telling, however, was the almost even breakdown across current users of Netflix (75.3 percent), Amazon (73.4 percent), Hulu (76.3 percent), HBO Now (the outlier at 63.6 percent), and CBS All Access (74.6 percent) who don't plan on subscribing to any new services. These proportions are sure to change as new big-budget streaming originals premiere, content rights battles are waged, and bidding wars intensify between big players in this increasingly crowded market. But for now, PCMag's survey found that most users are content with the streaming options they already have.
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