How the Pandemic ‘Turbo Charged’ Streaming While Customers Paid the Price
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed streaming adoption to new heights — and in the process, emboldened services to seek more money from their entertainment-starved viewers. Hub Entertainment Research, a firm that tracks media and entertainment trends, recently looked at how many services American consumers have. The data — which tracked adoption of paid streaming services, including companies offering live TV streaming, as well as ad-supported services — showed the average American viewer has 60% more services than they did just two years ago. “We’ve seen the number of providers per respondent rise to an all-time high during the pandemic. The average respondent had 4.8 services, ” Hub principal analyst Jon Giegengack said. “That was going up anyway, but the pandemic turbo charged it.” Enlarge This isn’t a shock, Giegengack said, when you consider new services like NBCU’s Peacock and HBO Max have debuted in the last few months; add to that the release of Apple TV+ and Disney+ within the last year, and the continued rise of free streaming services like Tubi, Pluto TV and Xumo. Even established juggernauts like Netflix have seen record growth so far this year, with Netflix adding 26 million subscribers during the first half of...
Read original story How the Pandemic ‘Turbo Charged’ Streaming While Customers Paid the Price At TheWrap
