Global Consumers Frustrated By Streaming Platforms' Experience: Content, Price, Navigation
- by Wayne Friedman , January 4, 2022
Entertainment streaming consumers increasingly have issues with the premium streaming industry, which is still relatively young, in terms of price, content, and ease of navigation, according to a new Accenture Research survey.
Some 60% of global users think the content they pay for is not “relevant” to them. When asked what percentage of content provided by five major streaming services is relevant to them, no service topped 40%.“That’s not far off from what we found consumers thought about the content they paid for from their cable providers a few years ago,” wrote the survey’s authors.
In addition, 60% are also frustrated with their experience navigating among different streaming platforms, and 56% said they wish their profile from one service could easily be shared with another service that may offer better, more personalized content.
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“Through our research, consumers said the video streaming experience has become somewhat unwieldy, unfriendly, and expensive for many of them,” said Andrew Walker, global Communications and Media industry group leader at Accenture, in a release.
Over one-third believe streaming platforms are becoming too pricey. As a result, 33% will “somewhat” or “greatly” decrease spend on media and entertainment across subscriptions and one-time purchases in the next 12 months. In the U.S., the percentage looking to cut back on streaming is at 40%.
Globally, 63% of consumers say streaming has become too expensive to pay for the entertainment subscriptions they want. In the U.S. that number is 70%.
Accenture says in the U.S. alone, there are more than
200 streaming options. It believes “aggregators will emerge, and grow more prominent; they will be critical to resolving customer frustrations.”
Accenture
Research’s online survey was conducted with 6,000 consumers ages 18 and older in 11 countries. Fieldwork was conducted between October and November 2021.
If only there was some kind of method for having all the content one might seek under one roof... a company, perhaps, that made different content available on different channels... and you could have a guide to look at and then click on the programming selectoin and would be taken right to the content. Now, wouldn't that be amazing?
This is where Roku might come in. I keep waiting for somebody to recognize that individual subscribers can churn through services right now, totally legally. Netflix is January, Disney+ is February, etc. They end up paying the average cost of all these services over a year, maybe $10/month.
So if we can do this ourselves with some effort, why wouldn't a platform like Roku automate the effort? They could offer various subscription schemes such as the monthly churn I described, or churn when I click a button on Roku (in case I want to keep Netflix longer than January), or Roku knows when a show or movie I want is going to hit, and switches me to that service for that month, etc.
No end to the way you could slice and dice this. I pay my $10 average cost to Roku and Roku handles the boring backend details. Maybe Roku adds $1 as an upcharge for the service, or maybe they get paid by the competitive benefit this confers to their hardware vs rivals who don't offer this, but they'll realize they need to, fast.
Roku already has relationships with all the platforms. The big ones like Netflix and Disney+ might look askanse at Roku getting between them and their subscribers like this, but could they stop it? And the also-rans like Peacock and Paramount+ might see this as a marketing benefit. Hey add us to your monthly churn rotation! It's a way to get their foot in the door.
Think about it, Roku. Maybe you are?
I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek. Cable companies have largely been just that kind of repository for content. The challenge now for any platform is becoming content discovery.