Nearly two-thirds of U.S. broadband households subscribe to at least one over-the-top (OTT) video service, according to a new report from Parks Associates.
According to the report, a flurry of new service launches in 2015 helped raise the portion of American households with OTT video services to more than 60 percent. Additionally, two-thirds of broadband households were found to own a connected entertainment device and more than a quarter of households own a streaming media player.
North of the border, research from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Media Technology Monitor (MTM) and Dapresy found that 45 percent of all TV viewers use OTT services such as Netflix, Shomi, Crave TV or Club Illico. More than half of Canadians said they have binge watched TV in an on-demand world.
Parks Associates Director of Research Brett Sappington said 2016 will bring viewers even more content options.
“The growth of OTT subscription services is amazing,” Sappington said. “We expect to see a variety of new content options to meet all tastes, interests, and languages. Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu will continue to dominate this space in the United States, but the new entrants stand to make huge gains.”
But Parks Associates Research Analyst Glenn Hower said companies will have to look beyond content to monetization in the coming year.
“Content will be key to attract the new video-centric consumer, and these emerging cloud-based businesses will be experimenting with different monetization models in 2016 and beyond,” Hower said. “Data analytics is one opportunity, but the challenge is turning data into a monetizable form.”