• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, March 20, 2025

Streaming consumer spending for a growing number of U.S. consumers is now rivaling levels of what they have spent on legacy TV platforms like cable and satellite pay TV services -- around $100/month.

Nearly 25% of American households spend over $100 a month on streaming and subscription services, according to Bango, a mobile payments company for digital content, via research from 3Gem.

Currently, the average American household pays for an average 5.4 subscriptions -- of which two come as part of a bundled package of streamers or similarly constructed package.

The research is from data from 5,000 U.S. subscribers -- conducted in January 2025.

Many of these “bundled packages” -- around 55% -- come through “indirect” subscriptions via mobile phone companies like T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T. Another 34% get these bundles via streaming retailers like Walmart+ and Amazon Prime.

In addition, Prime Video -- an existing individual premium streaming service -- offers up "add-ons" of other popular streamers. The top four are Paramount+ (where it has a 33% of all Prime Video add-on activity), Discovery+ (14%), Apple TV+ (13%) and MGM+ (9%).

A growing number of consumers -- around 10% -- have bought an AI (artificial intelligence) subscription service like ChatCPT.

While bundles do help some, they aren’t a total remedy for things consumers used to get with cable TV and satellite TV packages. Forty-one percent of subscribers are annoyed they can’t manage all of their subscriptions in one place, while 62% say they’d rather have a bundle than sign up for individual services.

Paul Larbey, CEO at Bango, a U.K.-based mobile payment company for digital content, said in a release:

“America is moving beyond the ‘subscription economy’ and into a ‘bundle economy’ — where platforms aren’t competing in isolation but teaming up to offer more value to subscribers.”

Back to the future? Seems that is where the consumer may be going, now sensing more of the positive that legacy pay TV platforms had offered.