Streaming customers are highly receptive to adding other products to their subscriptions, EY’s new Decoding the Digital Home study found.
For the first time this year, EY asked survey respondents about their likelihood of subscribing to a streaming service with additional products and services. The greatest interest was in shopping discounts (50%); 45% expressed interest in a bundle of more than one streaming service.
EY surveyed 21,000 households online in March and April in the US, UK, Canada, and other countries in the EU and Asia.
The findings are significant for streamers, which have historically focused on their unique content as a selling point, said Tom Loozen, EY Global Telecommunications Leader. “There’s a way to differentiate yourself by tapping into those opportunities,” he said of respondents’ interest in other services.
Of all countries surveyed, the appetite for streaming bundles was the strongest in the US, with 59% interested in streaming packages that included other streaming services or broadband/internet.
Looking at different age groups, interest in such bundles skewed young: 61% of those 25-34 were likely to take a bundle that included another streamer, versus 45% of all respondents, for example.
Economic worries and decision fatigue from the proliferation of entertainment options have boosted people’s interest in getting multiple services from one provider.
Nielsen’s 2022 State of Play report found similarly that 64% of respondents wanted the option to choose multiple streamers from a single company.
Media companies are responding with streaming bundles as they race to reduce churn and make their services profitable.
Comcast in May introduced NOW TV for $20 a month, a bundle of live channels from Warner Bros. Discovery, AMC, and others; free, ad-supported channels; and Peacock. Paramount+ has bundled with partners like Walmart and Sky. Disney offers Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu for one price and is in the process of migrating Hulu content into Disney+.
WBD in May combined Discovery+ and HBO Max into a single app, Max, which will soon add sports and news. Asked during a May investor conference about the possibility of a news- or sports-led skinny bundle, WBD CEO David Zaslav said packaging and marketing streaming services together made a lot of sense.
“If we don’t do it to ourselves, I think it will be done to us,” he said. “It will be Amazon that does it. It will be Apple that does it. It will be Roku that does it. They’re already starting to do it.”
Other media executives have pointed to successes with bundling. Disney CEO Bob Iger recently said the company’s plan to put Hulu content in Disney+ has already been proven out internationally with Star on Disney+. Paramount Global said its Paramount+ integration with Showtime led subscribers to spend 20% more time and view 40% more titles and churn less than subscribers to the standalone Paramount+.
Still, there are limits to bundling, as streamers still have big libraries of content and may not want to forgo lower average revenue per user by splitting subscription fees with partners.
EY also asked about recent price hikes for streaming services and found rising subscription fees haven’t caused widespread cancellations. Only about 20% of households have canceled a streaming subscription in the previous 12 months, and 13% plan to cancel one in the future, but 32% don’t plan to cancel any, per the EY study.
When people do cancel, cost was the top reason given (45%), while 31% cited a loss of their favorite content or a preference for other platforms, a sign that the landscape is still highly competitive. Satisfaction with streamers remains relatively high, at 55%.
“Basically, prices have gone up in the past year, but it doesn’t reflect an appetite to drop all the things you spend on in this space,” Loozen said.
Dissatisfaction is rising among one key group, however: 52% of 18- to 24-year-olds reported they get value for their money from streamers, down from 63% in 2022.
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