In an added flourish to Netflix’s year, the service beat out Prime Video after three years at No. 2 on Parks Associates’ “Top 10 SVODs by Subscribers” chart.

The pervasiveness of streaming is underscored by Parks Associates’ latest annual “State of Streaming” report, which found that the SVOD market as a whole has achieved a 91% penetration rate among U.S. households. The pay-TV business, in comparison, has a meager 41% household penetration rate.

On average, according to Parks Associates, U.S. SVOD households subscribed to 5.9 SVOD services in 2025, up from 5.6 in 2024. Parks Associates expects the average number of SVOD services subscribed to by SVOD households in 2026 to grow slightly, to 6, driven largely by bundling and discounted promotional rates.

Streamers will continue to raise prices going forward, predicts Michael Goodman, director of entertainment research for Parks Associates. He says the price hikes, particularly on premium tiers, “are as much about driving consumers to the ad-supported tiers as they are about driving revenue growth.”

After falling 2.6% in 2025 to an average of $10.96 as cheaper ad-supported tiers took hold, average revenue per SVOD service will once again grow in 2026, Goodman predicts, reaching $11.30 by the end of the year.

“As to when we will see price hikes slow or even stop, it is largely in the hands of consumers,” Goodman maintains. “Until we see net adds stall or decline as a result of price hikes, services have no incentive to stop raising prices.”

“Streaming consolidation is likely to mean fewer shows overall, with budgets and attention concentrated on bigger, safer bets,” Parks’ Goodman says. “Mid-budget and niche originals are more likely to be cut, shows will be given less of a chance to prove themselves and will be canceled faster, and franchises, sequels and event programming that can travel globally and reduce churn will be prioritized.

“As ad-supported tiers grow, platforms will favor sticky content like procedurals, reality and comfort TV that drive long viewing sessions, while libraries become less permanent as titles rotate in and out for cost control. While there may be the occasional mega-hits, overall there will be less experimentation, fewer risk-taking projects, and less catalog stability for viewers.”

Bundles, as they did in 2025, will increase, as services that are raising prices look to offer more value for price-conscious consumers.

“Regardless of who wins the fight for WBD, the direction is the same — fewer giants controlling more premium IP, which will lead to more bundling and fewer standalone ‘must have’ alternatives,” Parks’ Goodman says. “Instead of subscribing to services individually, a growing segment of the population will buy a bundle of SVOD services, either through the services themselves, TV providers, or broadband/mobile bundles, as this helps mitigate price increases and reduce churn. On the live-TV side, expect to see more skinny/genre-specific bundles such as sports, news, entertainment, etc., similarly to what YouTube TV and Sling TV are doing.”

“With 34% of subscribers to ad-supported tiers saying the lower monthly price makes SVOD services more affordable, and an additional 31% not minding ads if it saves them money, affordability is becoming a significant factor in SVOD subscription growth, while providing an alternative to cancellation,” Parks’ Goodman says.

According to the Parks Associates Subscription TV Forecast, ad-supported tiers are projected to account for all SVOD subscription growth in 2026, growing from nearly 363 million in the U.S. in 2025 to nearly 376 million in 2026. At the same time, subscriptions to ad-free premium tiers are projected to fall slightly from 280 million in 2025 to 279 million in 2026.

“Coinciding with this will be more features designed around ads (i.e., targeting, new formats), and in some cases increased ad loads,” Goodman says.

“Free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels have emerged as a critical complement, offering a low-barrier entry point for consumers while generating new advertising revenue streams,” according to Parks Associates.

In a 2025 survey of more than 8,000 domestic broadband households, Parks Associates found that consumers’ use of free ad-based services had doubled over the past six years, from 23% in the first quarter of 2023 to 46% in the third quarter of 2025. Nearly two-thirds of respondents in the Parks study said that the fact that FAST/AVOD services were free was their top reason for tuning in.

A 2025 Parks Associates survey found that 15% of consumers had bought or rented a movie via a connected-TV platform in the prior 30 days. Meanwhile, 6% bought or rented TV episodes.

From the article, "Home Entertainment Forecast 2026: Streaming Flexes Its Muscle, Transactional a Critical Revenue Bridge" by Stephanie Prange