Media

Nearly 20% of US Consumers Take Multiple Video Streaming Services

Paul Ausick

Published: October 13, 2016 8:40 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 2:27 am

Over the past three years, the number of U.S. consumers who subscribe to more than one video streaming service has risen by 50%. That’s one in six (16%) America’s TV-viewing population, or about 95% of all Americans between the ages of 13 and 64.

Roughly half of the U.S. viewing population subscribes to one of Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime, Hulu, or other streaming video service. A full 17% subscribe to both Netflix and Amazon Prime, while 9% have Netflix and Hulu, and 5% subscribe to all three.

The data were reported on Wednesday by market research firm GfK. The researchers also noted that households with subscriptions to both Netflix and Hulu are less likely (59%) to have pay-TV service than are those with Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions (67%).

GfK’s senior vice-president of media and entertainment, David Tice, said:

As consumers start to self-bundle, the potential impact of increasing subscriber fees for each streaming service will be compounded. The last one to a price increase party may be the first one cancelled – so individual streaming services need to consider competitor plans before instituting price hikes. There may also be a place in the market for a third-party aggregator of discounted streaming services.

Self-bundlers, according to GfK, have higher mean incomes than average ($90,000 vs. $76,000), but are less likely to subscribe to traditional pay-TV services. These households are also more likely to have children under the age of 18 at home. GfK notes:

The implications for content creators and brands alike are striking. Marketers want access to high-income households with very young consumers – who often influence their parents’ purchase decisions – but may have less access through standard channels (such as pay TV) if they self-bundle.

One additional item of note from GfK’s infographic: more people own Roku’s digital media player (15%), Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Chromecast (10%) and Amazon’s Fire TV (9%) than own Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Apple TV (8%).