According to a new consumer research report from Deloitte, video streaming services are starting to reach a consolidation stage. The same report highlighted that telcos could play a significant role in aggregating and enhancing the audience experience.

Leora Nevezie, Deloitte national media sector leader and partner, stated that digital entertainment subscriptions are now considered as a household utility. This is backed by data from the tenth annual Media Consumer Survey. Results from the survey show 80% of respondents paying for at least one digital entertainment subscription. In this case, the average monthly household spend is $55. The study that focused on five generations with a sample of more than 2,000 consumers in Australia was recently released.

Also, the survey revealed that 42% of the respondents have more subscription services than they did one year ago. In parallel to this, 70% of the respondents have a paid TV/movies service in the household. The latter is 15% higher than 55% of respondents having the same response in the previous year.

The survey results also showed that the average household is spending 10% more on subscriptions than their target budget. Among these respondents, 58% said that they were concerned about the rising costs of multiple subscriptions. 

When it comes to audience experience, the survey also revealed that two out of three respondents want to search and discover all content in one place. Also, more than 50% of the respondents prefer to subscribe to bundle plans, making it easy for them to manage their subscriptions.

Nevezie then said that: “Alongside this aggregation is a trend of consolidation – entertainment providers consolidating and converging their products and services to create entertainment ecosystems where audiences can move between content and services that are both free and paid, and with multiple revenue models.” 

“The easy-come, easy-go nature of subscriptions makes churn a constant challenge with exclusive content hunting and hyper-aware users who understand their binge-worthy moment is just a subscription hop, skip, and a jump away. Services will need to look beyond exclusive content, and demonstrate value to audiences through an entertainment ecosystem of multiple services and adjacent offerings,” Nevezie further added.

It is also notable that the way Australians watch FTA TV is changing: “Matures and Boomers almost exclusively watch on television, at 100% and 95% of respondents respectively. However, Millennials and Gen Z lead the way on laptop and mobile viewing: Millennials at 20% and 16% respectively.”