The good news for the domestic video business, per TiVo’s latest quarterly “trends report”: After a brief plunge, consumer spending on video entertainment and the number of services they use is back up, driven in part by seasonality and potentially by clever bundled marketing strategies.
Of 1,410 U.S. and Canadian consumers polled for TiVo’s “Q2 Video Trends Report,” respondents report using an average of 10.87 video sources, up from just 9.1 at the same time last year.
The number of “paid” video entertainment services used, which had dipped from an average of 6.9 in Q2 2023 to just 5 in Q2 2024, is back up to 7 this year.
And after dropping to an average monthly spend on video entertainment of just $140.06, pay TV bills included, average monthly video spending is back up to $169.12 this year.
These quarterly reports from Xperi-owned TiVo are always jammed-backed with useful data — but context is often lacking. Case in point: in the latest report, subtitled “The Great Rebuilding,” TiVo said that 44% of respondents now report paying for a streaming bundle, with the Disney Bundle (19.8%) being the most popular choice – followed, interestingly, by Walmart+ bundled with Paramount + at 14.7% (a retail-provided bundle that now also includes the option for NBCUniversal’s Peacock).
One might deduce that the relatively new video business marketing dynamic of clever bundling strategies has enticed consumers to actually buy more video services. But there’s no context as to if and how fast service bundling is growing.
That said, at the beginning of the report, TiVo provided some reasoning, saying both bundling and seasonality influenced higher consumer spending on video.
“On average, consumers are paying $20-30 more per month than they did the previous year, driven largely by seasonal price increases, as well as the popularity of bundled service offerings for exclusive content available only on select platforms,” wrote TiVo in its report. “This willingness to spend highlights a strong desire for personalized and high-quality viewing experiences as well as the resiliency of video in these trying economic times.”
TiVo’s report also offers this factoid — one-third of social video domestically is now consumed on televisions. Based on widely popular Nielsen statistics that show connected TV usage of YouTube exploding each month, this isn’t surprising. But again, what’s the context? Is overall CTV social use growing fast? We looked back at the Q2 2024 “Video Trends Report,” and couldn’t find a similar figure.
Other corroborated data from TiVo includes more reported upticks of FAST usage. And happily, there is some context offered up here. Nearly 70% of respondents reported using at least one free ad-supported streaming service in the second quarter, an 8% YoY increase. This jibes with data released a day earlier by Wurl, which said that the number of U.S. households actively using FASTs is up 12% YoY.
Meanwhile, for SVODs, and conflicting with transactionally-sourced data released by Antenna earlier this year, TiVo’s survey-based finding suggest churn is up for subscription streaming.
According to the latest “Trends Report,” 25.4% of respondents reported cancelling an SVOD service in the last six months. That number hovered around 18.5% in Q2 of 2024, TiVo said.
And 22.5% of those surveyed in the second quarter said they cut the cord on a pay TV services, versus just 19.6% in the second quarter of 2024.