Parks Associates Reports on U.S. Streaming Landscape

Two new reports from Parks Associates shed light on the current streaming landscape in the U.S., where 70 percent of broadband households own at least one streaming video product connected to the internet.

According to the Reaching Today’s Video Audiences: Platform Diversity and ROI whitepaper, ownership of smart TVs and streaming media players continues to rise, and gaming console ownership has held steady after several years of losses. Consumers have fully embraced streaming services, with more than 80 percent of broadband households having at least one service and 49 percent having four or more services.

“The streaming video market has experienced increased service usage, and consumers are watching streamed video content on multiple devices in the home and increasingly from multiple services,” said Paul Erickson, director of research at Parks Associates. “The role of streaming video across multiple platforms is more important than ever before in the entertainment mix for consumers.”

Parks also finds that 56 percent of U.S. broadband households now own a smart TV. More than half of those households are now using the smart TV as the device they access most frequently to watch streaming video.

“The video developer community is seeing similar growth in their applications targeting multiple platforms, as OTT services support 10 percent more devices than they did last year,” said James Varndell, senior product manager for Bitmovin Player. “Given how many different platforms providers must support to reach their diverse global audience, developers need to consider all of the factors to launch on a new device, such as development costs, ongoing testing and support, error reduction and more.”

Also, 72 percent of broadband households are engaging in multiplatform streaming video viewing and 40 percent are viewing on all platforms available to them. “Consumer adoption of multiple streaming video services may slow, but their comfort with streaming content will persist—the connected home is now permanently a multiplatform environment,” added Erickson.

In a separate survey, Parks finds that U.S. broadband households have an average of 14.5 connected devices, with future purchase intentions still high as consumers continue to embrace entertainment technology: 41 percent of U.S. broadband households have a streaming media player; 38 percent have a gaming console; 36 percent subscribe to or are trialing a video gaming service; 31 percent use free ad-based OTT services; and 50 percent of cord-cutters cite the high cost of traditional pay-TV services as the reason to cancel the service.

“Streaming video consumption and the devices that enable it are fixtures of modern life,” said Erickson. “Consumers are increasingly willing to spend for better entertainment experiences at home, and they now see greater tangible value in the content, services and devices that maximize the quality of their home audio and visual experiences.”