Uh-Oh: U.S. Consumers Are Using Fewer Streaming Services for the First Time

While recent tallies have suggested that Americans are spending more than ever on subscription streaming, one just completed survey says they're suddenly using fewer apps.

According to Hub Entertainment Research’s latest annual “Best Bundle” survey of 1,603 adult broadband-subscribing TV watchers in the U.S., the average number of TV sources respondents reported using dropped for the first time ever, declining appreciably from 7.4 in 2022 to 6.4 in 2023.

Not so surprisingly in an economy with record job growth, a resurgent stock market and declining inflation — but strangely marked by headlines every day that we're about to careen into recession — the biggest U.S. subscription streaming platforms are reporting declines in user scale.

And consumers are suddenly “stacking” fewer SVOD services.

Notably, while usage of free ad-supported streaming and ad-supported video-on-demand platforms surged in the last few years, Hub found the number of FAST and AVOD platforms used by American homes has largely remained flat with 2022.

Mark Loughney, a senior consultant, who led the survey, suggested the production disruption caused by the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike could sustain the downward arc found in the survey.

“If the ongoing writers strike persists long enough to significantly disrupt content pipelines, the value proposition of most services won’t be attractive enough to entice subscribers to return any time soon,” Loughney said. “It could be two years or longer to determine whether the decline in the first quarter was a momentary pause in the growth of the SVOD ecosystem or a permanent reset.”