Social distancing drives ‘dramatic’ increase in TV provider uptake
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 04 May 2020

While a number of recent studies have shown that consumers are watching more television as they shelter at home, Hub Research has revealed exactly where they’re turning to fill their newly found viewing time and has shown that viewers are increasingly investigating numerous providers.

Hub’s annual The Best Bundle study for 2020 was conducted among 2,000 US consumers with broadband, age 16-74, who watch at least an hour of TV per week. The data were collected in April 2020. The study looks at how consumers cobble together TV services to best meet their viewing needs, and how those DIY bundles are changing over time. The 2020 study reveals big changes from 2019, driven not just by Covid-inflicted, self-isolating behaviours and the introduction of Disney+ in November 2019.

Fundamentally, Hub found that when taking all providers into account—including traditional pay-TV service and the full range of online services—the average consumer now accesses TV from nearly five different services. this average number has been growing over the past several years, but has taken a big jump in the past year—up more than one service per consumer.

Moreover, the leading SVOD services have seen the largest year-over-year increases, especially Amazon and Hulu. But the most notable finding said Hub was how quickly Disney+ has altered the streaming landscape. In less than six months since it launched, nearly a third of TV consumers have taken up Disney+.

In the end, with more time to fill and more interests to cater to, families sheltering at home are now watching from an extremely wide variety of TV services. Those isolating at home due to Covid-19, along with their kids, access more than seven individual TV services, on average.

In households where both parents and kids are staying at home because of Covid-19, more than 90% have at least one TV streaming subscription and that more than three-quarters of TV consumers have an online streaming subscription, 6 points higher than in 2019. Indeed, shelter-at-home behaviours were having a dramatic impact on subscription to online TV services.

Among those who were not self-isolating due to Covid-19 and do not have kids at home because schools are closed, three-fifths have at least one streaming service subscription. Among those who are self-isolating, this rockets to 82%. Among those self-isolating and with kids at home, streaming service use is nearly universal, at 94%.The streaming services getting especially big boosts among adults and kids sheltering at home are the four major SVODs: Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and Hulu.

“There’s no shortage of recent studies demonstrating that consumers are watching more television as they shelter at home,” commented Peter Fondulas, principal at Hub and co-author of the study. “What our study shows is exactly where they’re turning to fill their newly found viewing time—primarily to streaming services that offer a combination of exclusive originals, family-friendly titles, and older shows that can provide a bit of nostalgic solace during this unprecedented and stressful time.”