The “Big 5” OTT streaming services saw less growth in hours per household between January and April this year than the next 5 biggest services. But the figures in a recent study [download page] by Comscore shows that while there’s potential for growth among mid-range OTT services, the smaller services are struggling to gain reach.
Top 10 Services See Growth While Others Struggle
Some 82.5% of OTT streaming hours in April 2020 were accounted for by the “Big 5” streaming services: Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video, Hulu and Disney+. This group also saw growth in hours per household (7.9%) and a slight change in reach (1%) from January to April 2020.
However, it was the next 5 services – HBO Go/Now, Spotify, Pandora Radio, Tubi TV and VUDU – that, despite accounting for fewer streaming hours, saw the fastest growth in viewing between January and April. These next 5 experienced a 17.3% increase in hours per household and a 5% climb in absolute change in reach. With plenty of reasons why consumers might look to subscribe to additional streaming services, there is clearly potential for these next 5 services to grow in further.
Interestingly, among the “Big 5” group itself, it’s the smaller of the 5 services that have seen more growth since the start of the year. Netflix, despite being the top performer in terms of total OTT households, saw the slowest growth in viewing hours of the top 5 (+6%), while Hulu and Disney+ saw the fastest growth of the 5 (+17% and +14%, respectively).
Streaming Has a Long Tail
That being said, the potential for success among streaming services that are not the “Big 5” appears to end there. The next 6 services saw a full 15.6% decrease in hours per household as well as a 2% decrease in absolute change in reach. Despite the overall success of OTT as a service, with adoption growing year-over-year in the US, smaller services face the challenge of sitting at a long tail of reach.
As such, while 5 apps account for more than 25% of reach, 12 account for just 2-5%, while some 31 apps make up a fractional 0-1% of reach of OTT streaming households.
Ad-Supported Service Reach Grows
Though non-ad supported services remain the dominant format, reaching 62.3 million households in April 2020, the reach of ad-supported services saw more growth between January and April than their counterpart.
Increasing from a reach of 53.7 million households in January to 58.5 million in April, ad-supported services are becoming more and more popular in the US. This signals a great opportunity for advertisers who may be reassessing their linear TV ad spend as OTT service adoption grows.
Access the full report and accompanying webinar here.