Linear TV is apparently more resilient than expected in competition with streaming platforms. According to a study, usage has only declined slightly over the past three years. Is the streaming market saturated?
Despite the wide range of streaming platforms, traditional television remains popular with audiences. According to a study by management consultancy Deloitte, a large majority of 81 percent of viewers in Germany predominantly watch conventional television. This is only slightly less than three years ago (83 percent).
When it comes to the competing streaming platforms, Deloitte experts see the end of the rapid growth phase: According to this, almost two thirds (64 percent) of German households have taken out a streaming subscription, just as many as last year and even slightly fewer than during Corona -Year 2022.
This year's “Media Consumer Survey” by Deloitte was based on a survey of 2,000 consumers about their television and video consumption. The annual Media Days, one of the most important industry meetings in Germany, begin this Wednesday in Munich.
TV is a convenient “incidental medium”
In the study, “predominant” television consumption means that the viewers in question spent more than half of their viewing time with conventional television programs. However, only 19 percent of those surveyed answered that they spend more than half of their respective viewing time “watching videos outside of traditional television.”
Given the numerous video alternatives, television is proving to be “enormously resilient,” write the study authors. They see the live character, convenient use as a “casual medium” and loyal viewers in the older age groups as advantages of television.
A lot of “subscription hopping” when it comes to streaming
In the streaming market, however, the study sees the first signs of saturation. “The enormous growth that video-on-demand services experienced during the Corona period has now subsided,” said Sophie Pastowski, one of the authors. But even if, according to Deloitte, the number of users is not increasing any further, according to the survey, every second streaming customer is watching more than last year.
At the same time, Deloitte notes “provider hopping”: subscriptions are therefore only taken out intermittently. In the survey, almost ten percent of participants said that they had both taken out a subscription and canceled one in the past year. “Competition for TV and video audiences’ screen time and budgets will become even more intense in the future,” Pastowski said.
