Accenture Examines “Streaming’s Next Act”

According to a new Accenture report, 60 percent of global consumers are frustrated with navigating content on streaming video services.

The Streaming’s Next Act: Aggregators to play a starring role in making consumers happier report surveyed 6,000 consumers from around the world to understand their preferences, beliefs and behaviors on their video content streaming experiences.

Along with the challenge of finding something to watch, consumers think more than 60 percent of the content they are paying for is not relevant to them. More than half (56 percent) say they wish their profile from one service could easily be shared with another service that may offer them better and more personalized content.

“Through our research, consumers said that 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. “A big change to the streaming ecosystem is needed to give consumers greater control over their experience—the addition of a smart content aggregator, sitting across multiple platforms.”

The report also finds that while consumers care more about the content delivered by streaming services, they find the navigation experience with the growing number of services to be increasingly frustrating. Accenture says that content aggregators can address this concern by unifying access across streaming services through application software, services and data-sharing agreements. It also says that aggregators can also foster flexibility and personalization for viewers by serving as a single platform with curated content that enables them to select exactly what they want to watch.

“Consumers didn’t express a strong preference for a particular company to give them a better user experience,” said John Peters, managing director in the media and entertainment industry group at Accenture. “People expect innovation and improvement in this space and are looking for a company to come up with new and better ideas for delivering content to them in a way that makes their lives easier and their viewing experiences more enjoyable.”

Accenture urges those in the streaming entertainment ecosystem to consider their play in the aggregated world. “Determine if you want to be an integrator or the integrated, so you can either shape distribution deals to entice subscription video on demand (SVOD) and advertising-based video on demand (AVOD) services to participate or partner with the entities vying to be the preferred integrator.”

It also encourages companies to start planning for a distributed data model: “Invest in data privacy and make that commitment known to your consumers, so they are confident sharing data that is critical for integration and personalization services.”

The firm says that companies should be “ready to stretch. Think beyond SVOD and AVOD services to consider music services, podcast and e-book services, video games, home security, food delivery services and more.” And also, to engage in experimentation. “Players with data-driven experimentation at the core of how they operate will be far more ready and nimble to adapt to changing consumer preferences.”