HITS

Seventy percent of consumers say there will be too many streaming choices, 87% worry it will become too expensive to keep up, and the need to toggle between services (67%), account setup and management (58%), and the difficulty of content discovery (45%) are all weighing on their minds as well.

That’s from content tracking platform company TV Time — which, along with recently acquired content value management (CVM) platform operator Mediamorph is rebranding into Whip Media Group — and its study “Beyond the Big Three,” which sought to find out how consumers feel about the growing number of available streaming services. TV Time conducted the study with UTA IQ, the data and analytics arm of United Talent Agency.

“In a television landscape that is experiencing such intense disruption, we are seeking to better understand how consumer preferences and attitudes play into it,” said Joe Kessler and David Herrin of UTA IQ, in a statement. “It is indeed the Golden Age of Television, in that there are more great shows being made, more competition for eyeballs and ultimately, greater demand for creative talent, than ever before. Research like this helps us look beyond the horizon and make more informed decisions as we work together to navigate these monumental shifts in the marketplace.”

There’s good news in the study as well: a lot of consumers intend to add one (42%) or two (20%) new streaming services, and they’re willing to accept ad-supported content (44%), though still prefer subscription-only models (56%). Ninety percent of respondents said it was “important” or “very important” for their service to have library content, compared to 68% who said the same about originals.

Disney+ and Apple TV+ had the highest levels of awareness (88% and 63%, respectively), followed by HBO Max (37%) and NBCUniversal’s Peacock (28%). And Disney+ won’s just be for families, with 55% of childless respondents saying they were likely to subscribe, compared to 57% with kids. A majority of respondents (70%) said they were not “likely” or “very likely” to drop a current service if they did subscribe to Disney+.

“While Disney+ appears well-positioned to succeed internationally, it may require additional focus in strategic markets to encourage people to subscribe,” said Alex von Krogh, VP of TV Time. “It will be important to track how people engage with their programming from a global perspective and how that compares to competitors in those markets.”

In three of the four countries where Disney+ is also launching in November (the Netherlands, Canada and Australia), subscription intent was also high: 49% in the Netherlands, 42% in Canada, and 38% in Australia.