Special Report: Alternative Media Rises as Audiences are Overwhelmed by Choice
Milko
The expansion of content through streaming services places power into the hands of viewers like never before. As more content is produced, audiences are beginning to feel overwhelmed by the abundance of choice. The oversaturation of content affects audiences’ ability to consume and advertisers’ ability to sell, and there is an increasing concern that streaming services are losing their appeal among the general public.
The Nielsen Company, a private global analytics company, published a report showcasing audiences’ inability to keep up with video content in their 2023 State of Play Report. This report examined the general public’s streaming usage and time spent finding content versus actually watching content. They compared their findings with traditional media and inspected the intersectionality between streaming and live TV.
Streaming allows audiences to choose what they want to watch, in contrast to the typical construct of live TV. Across the U.S., U.K., Canada, Mexico, and Germany, Nielsen found Live TV expanded its catalog from 250,000 individual video titles in 2021 to 510,000 in 2023. Concurrently, streaming grew by almost one million in the same two-year time span. While both live programming and streaming found significant growth, 86.7% of total video titles reside on streaming platforms. This gives streaming a competitive edge against live TV, and advertisers are beginning to incorporate marketing strategies that merge streaming with traditional TV advertisements.
Distinct Video Titles Across Linear TV and Streaming Services
Unlike traditional media, digital media possesses few limitations on what audiences can watch. However, this is a double-edged sword, with audiences reporting feeling overwhelmed by choice; 20% of participants stated other activities caught their eye because they couldn’t find something to watch. This abundance of content led consumers to spend an average of 10-and-a-half minutes searching for content to watch, despite having nearly “40,000 different channels and streaming sources to find content on.”
Part of this problem results from a lack of personalized content discovery that most streaming services refuse to integrate. Unlike how Spotify curates home page recommendations based on the user’s listening history, traditional programs lack the encoded metadata that would expose audiences to content matching their tastes; this issue grows larger as more titles are introduced. Audiences can’t find anything to watch because the current metadata encoded within shows isn’t specific enough to recommend programming audiences might enjoy. Additionally, this makes discovering new programming feature people of color incredibly difficult; current analytics don’t have enough descriptors to separate these series from one another.
Audiences love the freedom streaming gives them, yet the variety of choice burdens them. This resulted in 60% of audiences reverting back to content originally aired on linear channels. For example, programs such as Grey’s Anatomy and Gilmore Girls overtook the top titles in streaming; in May of 2023 alone, acquired titles made up 60% of time spent streaming. The steady rise of acquired titles is contributing to the merging of live TV and streaming known as Free Ad-Supported Television (FAST) services. Unlike streaming, FAST channels — like Tubi TV and Pluto TV — offer programming reminiscent of traditional cable, with scheduled programming and live shows with dedicated time slots. This accommodates those not looking to spend minutes searching for something to watch and those that want on-demand service.
Unlike traditional television, FAST channels quickly adapt based on demand, allowing audiences to find programming they are more inclined to watch. In late June, NBC Universal announced plans to launch 48 FAST channels to Amazon Freevee and Xumo play, which will include dedicated channels to top series like Saturday Night Live and The Real Housewives. Another bonus is that FAST creates channels for genres and series that cater to specific content needs. Thus, it will be easier to find and cultivate POC programming through FAST channels than through streaming.
The inclusion of FAST services within traditional streaming platforms brings the rise of ad-supported streaming. As more streaming services include ads, ad-free, subscription-based content distribution is replaced, and FAST channels will only accelerate this. In the U.S., subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) fell from 53% in 2021 to 49% in May of 2023, while ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) grew 1% to an overall 25%. Multi-Channel Programming Distributors such as Direct TV and Dish, grew 5% to an overall 15% in 2023 as ad-supported options continued to increase.
Percentage of Streaming Minutes Watched in the U.S
Growing consumer trends indicate that ad-supported TV will become more dominant, with FAST channels increasing at a rapid pace. According to Nielsen, “Gracenote Video Date had a record of 1,400+ individual FAST channels in their database” as of June 2023; this included 1,073 FAST channels in the U.S., 206 in the U.K., 108 in Germany, and 37 in other countries. There is a clear shift as companies are no longer forced to focus on the ad-free subscription-based model. The user experience is critical to success in the streaming wars, and streamlining the content selection process will keep audiences engaged as they find more content they enjoy.
Similar to Spotify’s personalization, advertisers and people of color using FAST services can personalize channels with precision to get recommendations matching their preferred content. Personalized homepages catering to audiences’ established viewing habits can increase the enjoyment of the viewer while heightening exposure to new POC content. This not only helps people of color looking to build an audience, but also audiences looking for content that relates to them. With the inclusion of distinct channels, advertisers and media companies will retain viewers while providing audiences with the best of both worlds: on-demand video and personalized traditional television.