The 2024 Streaming Subscription Landscape

Since 2007 when Netflix had the crazy idea of streaming movies instead of mailing DVDs to our houses, streaming services have continued to innovate and dominate home entertainment in American households. This market has a few big players, but arguably remains truly competitive as each service adapts to the other’s success. Last year, when Amazon Prime secured its deal with the NFL to stream its featured Thursday night football game, it opened the window of opportunity for streaming services to dip their toe into the world of live television as HBO followed their lead by offering live NBA and NHL games.  Legacy media companies are now combining their traditional cable offerings with streaming options such as NBC and Peacock during the Olympics. This constant innovation and drive to grow among streaming services leaves traditional cable providers in an ever shrinking market, and companies needing to adjust their advertising approaches. 

While the growth of the streaming industry was growing steadily throughout the last decade, the trajectory was given a boost during the Covid 19 epidemic as entertainment opportunities outside of the house were limited or non-existent. In our last post, we looked at the continued growth of time that Americans are spending streaming, versus watching through more traditional methods.  Currently, the American consumer is spending 57% of their home entertainment time streaming. Nearly half (48%) report that they are spending a majority of their time streaming, up from 34% just two years ago. What is clear is that the preferences of the American consumer regarding tv consumption have clearly shifted towards the side of streaming services and it feels unlikely that this pattern will change any time soon. 

The data is clear on the dominance of streaming, but this is a large category and the competition for eyeballs is fierce. Since we started tracking the data, a majority of households have had at least one streaming service subscription, and currently the average number of subscriptions is three. Netflix continues to have the largest share of subscribers, but their overall number dropped over the past year. Other services such as Hulu continue to increase their share, while services such as Disney+ are heading in the opposite direction. 

Subscriptions

Overall, more than 8 in 10 Americans across all age groups and demographics have a subscription to at least one streaming service. This number has been incrementally increasing over the past three years, after a big spike in streaming subscriptions between 2021 and 2022 (there was a 32% increase compared to the 2 to 3 percent increases we have seen since). Moving forward, it is likely that we will continue to see these small increases amongst American consumers as we move closer and closer to universal adoption. 

The vast majority of American households have between 1 and 4 different streaming subscriptions, while a quarter report having five or more subscriptions. The current average household has 3.0 different subscriptions up from 2.9 in 2023. Among those who have at least one subscription the average number of different subscriptions is 3.6, which is the same as last year, and down a touch from the 3.64 average in 2022 . In 2024, 59% of consumers report having between one and four streaming services while 24% have five or more. The percentage of households with five or more subscriptions has shown little to no growth over the past three years, while those with two or three subscriptions have shown the largest increases. 

Looking at how these averages breakdown, the cohort with the highest average number of subscriptions are parents of kids under the age of 18 followed closely by GenZ consumers. On the other end of the spectrum, we see that Boomers and those without kids in the home have the lowest average number of subscriptions although every demographic reports having at least two streaming services on average with the exception of Boomers. In our previous report, we mentioned that age and gender are big indicators of how much time someone spends on streaming and clearly this pattern holds with the number of subscriptions a person has. Also of interest is the higher number of average subscriptions among minority consumers versus, white consumers.

Not surprisingly, the more subscriptions you have the more time you spend streaming. Consumers with one subscription report spending half of their time streaming, while those with two subscriptions spend 60% of their home entertainment time streaming. As the number of subscriptions increase the increase in time spent streaming is notable up to four total subscriptions with the increased amount of time streaming increases by double digits. There is still an increase in time with five or more subscriptions, however the increases are much smaller.

Specific Services

Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu continue to dominate when it comes to market share. Even though they sit at the top when it comes to number of subscribers, Netflix’s numbers have declined over the past year and currently have the lowest concentration since we began tracking these numbers. Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu have steadily increased their number of subscribers over the past two years but are still behind Netflix by at least seven percentage points in terms of subscribers. As we previously mentioned, Prime Video's rise in subscribers can likely be attributed to their deal with the NFL and fans wanting access to Thursday night football games. Disney plus and Max (formerly HBO, HBOMax, and probably a few other names we are forgetting) are trending in the opposite direction as both have been losing subscribers over the last two years. 

While Netflix dropping in the concentration of subscribers, they are certainly the goto service regardless of how many subscriptions a consumer has. Amazon consistently has the second highest concentration of subscribers and is the only other service that is in double digits for those who have just one subscription. Hulu is holding a solid third place when it comes to consumers having two or more subscriptions. Disney Plus and Max are consistently in 4th and 5th place in terms of concentration of subscribers, but neither breaks the 30% threshold until you get to households with four or more subscriptions. Apple TV continues to be towards the bottom of the scale, a dynamic that has been consistent over the past three years.

When it comes to subscription differences by generation, GenZ is leading the pack and has the highest concentration of subscribers for Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, Disney plus, and Max. Inversely we see that Gen X tends to be the lowest concentration of subscribers with the exception of Peacock and Paramount Plus. 

Regardless of streaming service, Gen Z and Parents with kids under the age of 18 continue to be the main drivers of viewership and subscription based streaming. On average, both of these demographic groups have around four streaming subscriptions. If growth continues in the number of streaming subscriptions it is hard to imagine the top three services continuing to reap the benefits. The second tier services (Disney Plus, and Max) will likely benefit from this pattern, although it is clear that Peacock and Paramount Plus are not satisfied with being in the next tier down.