Americans spend less on streaming

[ncted]

Cutting the cord again? Americans are spending less on streaming as fatigue and options grow

According to Review's annual State of Consumer Media Spending Report, the average American spent 23 percent less on streaming subscriptions in 2024 than in 2023.

www.techspot.com

I suspect more are paying though, due to password sharing crackdowns.

 

[Bruce]

Cutting the cord again? Americans are spending less on streaming as fatigue and options grow

According to Review's annual State of Consumer Media Spending Report, the average American spent 23 percent less on streaming subscriptions in 2024 than in 2023.

www.techspot.com

I suspect more are paying though, due to password sharing crackdowns.

That survey is not supported by the subscriber’s numbers-

All Domestic ( USA, not even Canada) numbers

From Q4 2023 to Q3 2024
Hulu-a gain of 3.5M
Peacock a gain of 5M
MAX a gain of 600, 000
AMC+ a gain of 400,000
Paramount+ a gain of 5M
Disney+ a gain of 4M
Netflix a gain of 4.8M

 

[ncted]

That survey is not supported by the subscriber’s numbers-

All Domestic ( USA, not even Canada) numbers

From Q4 2023 to Q3 2024
Hulu-a gain of 3.5M
Peacock a gain of 5M
MAX a gain of 600, 000
AMC+ a gain of 400,000
Paramount+ a gain of 5M
Disney+ a gain of 4M
Netflix a gain of 4.8M

That survey did not measure subscriber numbers. It measured how much people were spending on streaming on a per subscriber basis. More people signing up for services doesn't mean the average spent per sub cannot go down. Between password sharing crackdowns and an as-yet unsaturated market, the numbers of new subs are way up, but it looks like the equivalent of ARPU across all streaming services (in aggregate) may be on the decline.

 

[comfortably_numb]

"the average American has two streaming subscriptions, and watches three hours and 49 minutes of content each day."

That's accurate for me. I pay $6.99/mo for Netflix and $28/mo for Philo.

 

[meStevo]

That survey is not supported by the subscriber’s numbers-

All Domestic ( USA, not even Canada) numbers

From Q4 2023 to Q3 2024
Hulu-a gain of 3.5M
Peacock a gain of 5M
MAX a gain of 600, 000
AMC+ a gain of 400,000
Paramount+ a gain of 5M
Disney+ a gain of 4M
Netflix a gain of 4.8M

It's because it's for the average American, not the average cord cutter who's replaced their prior consumption with streaming services. It's a poll of 1000 people with little context (how many have cable/sat services, etc) and then only averaged the cost of the most popular services, per their methodology statement. Most of their other data is collected as I understand it by fleeting surveys opened up to those visiting their site. So can include people who pay $6.99 for Netflix and those paying $100+ for a full boat of non-promotional rates for their services.

It's actually not even clear they are including things like YouTubeTV in this, as traditional / Live TV services are not mentioned, suggested or linked to.

It's basically an affiliate site that does polls and aggregates data to drive content/traffic to the affiliate links. Given the state of streaming, just coinciding with a significant promotion or transition could skew this pretty significantly. For example, the aggregation of services with Disney Plus since the prior year could have had 20%+ of their respondents saying they pay less (or even $0) for it vs last year, as people who share services with another household. There doesn't appear to be any interest in that level of analysis by the polling though.

When it comes to streaming, their findings are almost AI like in absoluteness:

• You can save up to $15 per month by reducing the number of streaming services you use, opting for an ad-supported subscription, or using free streaming apps like The Roku Channel

Up to $15. lol. This is a conclusion not detailed at all in their article, just a random number picked as a delta between ad and ad-free services apparently.