SVOD ( subscription-video- on-demand) is changing the way we watch television. People no longer want to be dictated to about when they watch their favourite shows. Gone are the days when people had to be in front of their TV to catch the latest episode of a series at 9pm on a Thursday.
They are now watching their shows when it’s convenient for them. This could be 3am on a Saturday or at 9am Monday morning and the consumer is in complete control of it all.
In the last 5 years, we have seen further growth in the percentage of people watching on-demand video services. In 2010, 30% of people watched on-demand video content at least once a day, but this is now up to 50%.
People now spend on average 6 hours a week watching streamed TV services. This figure has more than doubled since 2011. In the United States, over 1 in 2 people stream TV shows and movies on a monthly basis.
The appeal of on demand TV is obvious really. Watch what you want, when you want, and it’ll be difficult for regular TV services to compete with it. This isn’t to say that linear TV is finished and many people still watch it regularly. However, it is linked to age and while 82% of 60 to 69-year- old people watch linear TV on a daily basis, only 60% of millennials do so. Bingeing seems to be the done thing these days and people no longer want to wait a week to find out what happened on their show.
With the proliferation of smartphones, it is easier than ever to watch SVOD services with 1 in 5 people watching longer SVOD content on their smartphones. There has been a 71% increase in the number of people watching content on their smartphones since 2012.
Netflix is by far the biggest SVOD service at the moment and is a long way ahead of it its nearest competitors Amazon Prime and Hulu. Netflix’s focus on original content has helped their growth.
Amazon Prime is trying to do similar but is without question playing catch up at this stage. Hulu is really struggling on the original content front and has been very slow to produce shows of their own.
Check out this infographic from Frame Your TV for more information on the rise of SVOD services.