Streaming services aren’t all alike. A recent report by Horowitz Research shows audiences have strong preferences on which type of platform they flock to and it seems pretty consistent with past years’ streaming favorite tallies.
Horowitz Research shows subscription video-on-demand services like Netflix and Amazon take the cake, totaling 60 percent of all streaming subscriptions. Subscription video-on-demand services bring in around six out of every ten hours of streamed viewing. Ad-supported and free ad-supported plans rated second popular at 25 percent.
On the other hand, live television streaming platforms like YouTube TV, Sling TV, Hulu Live, and other live streaming television subscriptions make up only 6 percent of all streaming services. Live television streaming services offer the same viewing experience as traditional cable packages but are less expensive and don’t carry with them those pesky long-term contracts.
To add some perspective to these percentages, Netflix reported 232.5 million subscribers during the first quarter of 2023 and has reached record daily new subscription numbers since enforcing its no password sharing policy. A growing number of Netflix users are pleased with the ad-supported tier, which has significantly contributed to the platform’s overall numbers.
Amazon Prime Video membership is just shy of Netflix’s subscription numbers with 220 million subscribers. Last year Amazon Prime Video temporarily beat out Netflix as the streaming platform with the most users.
Those are big numbers compared to the 6.3 million paying subscribers YouTube TV reported earlier this year, gaining 1.4 million new subscribers since last year. Hulu Live is holding pretty steady since last year, although this live streaming service still lost around 500,000 subscribers and fell to 4.4 million this year. Sling TV’s subscription numbers fell from 2.23 million last year to 2.10 million by the end of the first quarter of 2023.
Although live streaming television is a great replacement for those wanting the cable experience without the hefty prices, subscription video on demand is still cheaper and can offer an ad-free viewing experience, which audiences prefer.