SVOD fails to take off with older viewers in UK
Details
Editor
| 24 May 2017

There may be no end of overall growth for subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), but a study of TV viewing habits in 13 countries by Ampere Analysis has revealed that people aged 55-64 are yet to embrace SVOD services, preferring linear TV channels and catch-up TV.

Ampere noted that with 55-64 year olds representing a fifth (19%) of the total under-65 audience, the SVOD industry was failing among a large and affluent group. The survey showed that in the US, only one in five of those aged 55-64 viewed Netflix in the past month, compared with twice that figure for all viewers. In the UK, just a tenth of those in the same age group viewed the SVOD leader in the past month, and in Germany just one in 20.

The analyst added that part of the challenge for SVOD service providers in reaching this group was that, unlike younger people, most TV and movie content viewing for those aged 55-64 is on a television set. It found that despite the fact that they owned connected devices such as smartphones, tablets and PCs, they rarely viewed content on them. Indeed between 6am and 9am, 80% of the group’s self-reported viewing was on a TV set. In terms of the times they watch TV, group’s behaviour matched that of the total viewing audience, with most viewing during the peak hours of 8pm to 12am – a contrast to younger viewers, who increasingly use connected devices to view during the daytime.

Moreover, older viewers were found to be just basically substantially less likely than average to have SVOD (33% less likely), premium channels (31% less likely) or music services such as Spotify (65% less likely). In the UK, just 13% of older viewers watched Netflix and 8% used Amazon.

These figures compares badly with the catch-up services of the main national broadcasters, which are enjoyed by older audiences. In the UK, 53% of older viewers watched BBC iPlayer, and 34% watched ITV Hub in the last month, both just one percentage point difference from the average viewer. Almost a fifth of 55-64-year-olds watched All4 compared with 28% of all viewers, and 17% watched My5 compared with 18% of all viewers. In Germany, ZDF’s catch-up service ZDF Mediathek was watched by 25% of 55-64-year-olds in the last month, compared with 22% of all viewers. For RTL Now, it’s 7% and 10% respectively.

“Older viewers are often an overlooked audience segment, despite representing a fifth of target viewers (and a sixth of all adults) – and an increasingly wealthy portion of the population,” commented Ampere Analysis director Richard Broughton. “Smart TV penetration is reasonably high amongst this group, and they are using the broadcasters’ catch-up services already, so it should be possible to encourage them to take SVOD services. The key to understanding the dynamics of this hugely varied group is to get the content offer, package, price and message right and introduce them to the world of SVOD. Content suiting the genre interests of this group (such as Netflix’s ‘The Crown’) is already beginning to filter through to services and will do much to improve the saleability of SVOD to this audience.”