There are now 348 standalone streaming services in the United States and Canada, down slightly from a post-pandemic high of 366 in 2022 but up significantly from 2015, when there were just 154, according to Parks Associates data presented here Jan. 7 during trade association OTT.X’s annual pre-CES breakfast at the Stirling Club.

Elizabeth Parks, the research company’s president, said that after more than two decades of “incredible growth of streaming services entering the market,” trends are now pointing toward consolidation.

She said internet connectivity “really is the driver for everything for the consumer, in the home and at work,” and noted that “practically everybody” now has broadband. Accordingly, Parks research — each quarter, the company surveys 8,000 consumer households — shows that 88% of internet households have at least one streaming service and 66% own a smart TV.

The average household, Parks said, now has 17 connected devices. “I have 55 devices in my home, and I also have three children,” she quipped.

Much has been written about how the rise in streaming, and smart TV ownership, has impacted the pay TV business. Over the last three years, Parks research shows, the number of households who have cut the cord to pay TV has jumped to 46% from 35%, to an estimated 56 million households (out of 130 million total).

“This is an incredible change,” Parks said.

She expects more cord-cutting in the future, as well as a growing number of “cord nevers” who have never subscribed to any pay TV service.

“These are the young people who are like, ‘I don’t need to get cable — what is that,’” Parks said. “If you have children, you know that they don’t watch TV the way we used to when we were kids.”

And yet, Parks pointed out, 42% of households still have traditional pay TV service, “and just as a point of reference, that’s about 48 million households that are still watching traditional TV — and then you have practically everybody watching streaming as well.”

“This creates a problem for advertisers,” Parks said. “The brands — they don’t know where to go to get the eyeballs, and they still are going to be centered around these millions and millions of households in one place versus hundreds of direct streaming services. And that’s why I think, in 2025, we’re going to see a lot of consolidation and a lot of services coming together.”

Overall, video viewership continues to rise. Parks noted that total weekly video consumption in the average household was 53.4 hours in 2024, up from 23.3 hours in 2010.

“And where is the growth coming from? The mobile phone, the computer, the tablet, and the TV — everybody is watching more video content, on every device they own,” Parks said.

As of the third quarter of 2024, Parks said, the average household is spending $144 a month on streaming subscriptions and $91 on traditional pay TV.

“You can see there is a lot of money being spent all over the place,” she said, “and advertisers are having to figure out where do they spend their money to get those eyeballs to sell their products. It’s a fragmented, split market.”

From the article, "Parks Associates: Expect Consolidation Among Streamers to Accelerate in 2025" by Thomas K. Arnold