Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Streaming wars will force media companies to choose between pricey subscriptions and ads

Parks Associates, a research firm that tracks the connected home, found in a recent survey that one-third of U.S. broadband households use a free, ad-based streaming service, up from 24% a year earlier.

“Consumers are turning to ad-supported streaming services as subscription fatigue continues to settle in,” Brandon Riney, a researcher at Parks, told CNBC in an email. “When discussing attitudes regarding ads on these streaming services, more consumers are willing to endure the ads to watch the content than completely resisting them.”

“As the purse strings of OTT consumers tighten, there is tremendous opportunity for free ad-based services to thrive,” wrote Steve Nason, an analyst at Parks Associates, in a post in November. “A service can establish a foothold in this space by delivering a unique offering of high-quality content in an engaging advertising-based environment.”

From the article "Streaming wars will force media companies to choose between pricey subscriptions and ads" by Megan Graham.

Previously In The News

Finally: Every Baseball Team’s Sports Network Is Available On At Least One Streaming Service

As YouTube TV’s recent rate hike shows, these services themselves are not immune to rising programming costs. And the same traits that make streaming much less customer-hostile than cable or satellite...

Netflix Earnings Preview: Is Streaming Video Giant Still Snagging New Subscribers?

On top of that, the industry churn rate—a metric used to reflect cancelled subscriptions to streaming services overall—shot up 41% in Q1, the most recent statistic available, as consumers experimented...

A Challenge For Video Streamers Will Be Keeping Subscribers

A Parks Associates analysis reported that SVOD churn rate dropped from 46% in third quarter 2019 to 38% in third quarter 2020. Among recent launches, the churn rate of Disney+ was at 13%, and HBO Max,...

Amazon's Alexa Speaks To The Connected Home

The Amazon Echo (more commonly known as “Alexa” based on the keyword voice command that triggers the female-sounding response) came on the market in November of 2014 to generally positive acclaim. The...