Six out of seven consumers worldwide want an all-in-one platform that streamlines their entertainment experiences with video streaming, fantasy gaming, social networking, e-commerce and more. This is what reveals the Accenture study “Reinvent for growth”, which interviewed 6,000 consumers to understand their preferences and behaviors regarding online entertainment experiences.
Four in 10 respondents (41%) said they would pay for a single platform for their entertainment services. Additionally, 61% would like to be able to share their streaming profiles across multiple platforms for greater content personalization.
“Independent streaming services face a few simple problems: there is a limit to what consumers are willing to pay, as well as a level of complexity and number of options they are prepared to deal with,” explains John Peters, managing director of Media and Entertainment practice at Accenture. “It’s time to reinvent entertainment ecosystems so entertainment companies can achieve profitable growth by helping consumers get everything they need and want.”
Other findings from the report reinforce the need for media organizations to reconsider their operational and content strategies:
35% of consumers canceled at least one of the top five video-on-demand streaming services in the past 12 months, and 26% said they plan to cut one or more out in the next 12 months.
• 76% of consumers reported frustration when finding something to watch, up six percentage points from 2021.
• 55% of consumers said they feel overwhelmed by the number of streaming services available and 26% said it can take more than 10 minutes to choose a streaming option (up from 17% in 2021).
The Accenture report also identifies three emerging roles for entertainment companies that are competing for consumers’ time, attention and money:
Audience aggregators are platform companies with a diversified business model that monetize attention and engagement directly and indirectly by uniting diverse services, including entertainment services, in one place.
• Audience growers are able to efficiently create and monetize entertainment in one or more forms (eg video, music, games, etc.) from data about their core audience. The focus is on the content/cost ratio and ensuring inclusion in public aggregator platforms and packages.
• Content marketers focus on creating the best possible content without needing to monetize the engagement achieved by that content.
“The future of the media industry is in aggregated platforms,” said Imran Shah, general manager of Accenture’s Communications, Media & Technology group. “These platforms will achieve two critical outcomes: creating inclusive, low-churn services and packages that generate revenue for media companies, while providing experiences for consumers to easily find and access content.”
Accenture conducted the study to better understand consumers’ preferences, beliefs and behaviors regarding their online entertainment experiences. The online survey, conducted with 6,000 consumers aged 18 and over and spread across 10 countries (Germany, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Spain, USA, Italy, India, Japan and UK), was designed to identify significant changes in the existing D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) media regime and offer suggestions to different brands on how to adapt their model and gain greater relevance and success with customers. Fieldwork was carried out between October and November 2022.
Oxford Economics assisted in the development of the research, carrying out fieldwork, analyzing the data and establishing the main narratives. The 2021 data collection was done by a different partner. To ensure proper comparisons, the 2021 and 2022 study samples were adjusted to have a similar structure.