• by Wayne Friedman , Today

Consumer streaming experiences have hit some poor quality levels, according to Nielsen’s Gracenote group.

Fully one-third of all streaming consumers say disparate and confusing content issues among streaming platforms -- as well as ineffective content discovery -- “impacts the TV experience.”

Among the younger 25-54 age group, this number has now risen to 40%, with another 45% saying the “streaming experience is overwhelming."

There are also complaints about content “fragmentation” split among many premium services -- specifically, which streamers carry which TV shows.

As far as content discovery is concerned, the research says it takes U.S. consumers 14 minutes on average to find a show to watch. In France, that time effort almost doubles -- at 26 minutes.

Gracenote also notes that 19% of subscribers will stop their search and just abandon their streaming viewing effort altogether. Almost 50% agree that they would be willing to cancel a service completely because of the difficulty in finding what to watch.

An overwhelming number of consumers, at 66%, want streamers to tell them where to find a specific program, including sports, “even if it’s on a different service.”

Existing content screen streaming guides and operating systems are lacking. For example, only 28% of streaming viewers decide to watch something based on a service’s recommendations.

Instead, 55% streaming subscribers head to the internet search platforms, with 54% using multiple services. Younger 18-24 streamers do this 70% of the time.

The research also finds that 75% of streaming viewers feel better served when recommendations are based on which movie or TV series they have viewed.

Complicating efforts around streaming to some extent -- and helping to siphon off some legacy TV and/or premium streaming viewers -- is the growth of FAST channels, which have grown by 21% just this year alone.