• by Wayne Friedman , April 11, 2024

Industry-wide OTT/streaming platforms’ subscription revenue will rise 8% next year and will command a majority share of the total video subscription market, according to eMarketer.

But some headwinds are coming.

This would be substantially lower than the double-digit percentage growth of previous years. 

Going forward, “streaming customers are becoming more likely to choose advertising plans or cancel their subscriptions,” say the authors of the research.

Ad-supported streaming plans typically yielded 40% to 50% lower pricing versus non-advertising streaming platform options.

Streaming/OTT platforms' monthly consumer fee revenues are estimated to $71.9 billion next year -- up from $66.2 billion in 2024.

These projections include virtual pay TV distributors such as YouTube TV, Hulu+Live TV, and Sling TV. This will give OTT subscription revenue a 53.5% share of the overall video subscription market.

Traditional pay TV subscriptions -- from cable, satellite and telco -- are estimated to sink 7% to $62.5 billion in 2025, down from $66.9 billion this year -- all due to continued cord-cutting by consumers

Looking broadly at all video subscription revenue (OTT/streaming and traditional pay TV platforms), the business is forecast to slow to a 1% increase in revenue from 2025 to 2027.

eMarketer estimates that this year, video subscriptions will total $133.2 billion for traditional TV and streaming fee revenues.