Average US household now spends $47 a month on streaming services

[Shawn Knight]

In context: American households are now spending an average of $47 per month on streaming services. That’s up from an average of $38 back in April 2020 at the onset of the global pandemic and is an indicator that consumers are increasingly ditching traditional cable and satellite services in favor of more affordable streaming offerings.

The data could also be a signal that people are increasingly spending more time indoors in an effort to slow the spread of Covid-19.

In a survey of 1,745 US adults, J.D. Power found that half of respondents said their household now subscribes to at least four streaming services. In April, only 39 percent of those polled had subscriptions to at least four services.

The survey further revealed that 13 percent of those questioned used as many as seven or more services.

In terms of popularity, Netflix is still king. A full 81 percent of respondents said they subscribe to the streaming giant, a figure that is down four percentage points since April 2020. Five of the six closest competitors – Hulu, Disney+, YouTube TV, HBO / HBO Max and Apple TV – all gained ground since the last survey.

NBC’s Peacock, which hadn’t launched at the time of the last survey, is subscribed to by 18 percent of respondents.

Image credit Said Marroun

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/88420-average-us-household-now-spends-47-month-streaming.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

HBO, Showtime, Cinemax...we pay about $200 a month for all premium channels on Verizon FIOS.

I refuse to pay a dime more.

The only other subscriptions I run are Sirius XM which is about $20 a month.

 

[Lionvibez]

Lol multiple streaming services just to have the price creep up to traditional cable bill level in a few years.

Glad I cut the cord 2 years ago and went with an android box, saved alot of money in the process.

 

[Scshadow]

HBO, Showtime, Cinemax...we pay about $200 a month for all premium channels on Verizon FIOS.

I refuse to pay a dime more.

The only other subscriptions I run are Sirius XM which is about $20 a month.

$200 a month? That seems crazy from my perspective. Do you ever think about cancelling that? Thats a lot of cash flow that can go to other things. I'm swimming in things to watch with just free Youtube and Netflix login from my cousin Greg (thanks Greg). Most of the time I forget I have prime but it's technically the only streaming service I pay for. But for $200 a month, I'd have to watch TV like it was a full time job.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

$200 a month? That seems crazy from my perspective. Do you ever think about cancelling that? Thats a lot of cash flow that can go to other things. I'm swimming in things to watch with just free Youtube and Netflix login from my cousin Greg (thanks Greg). Most of the time I forget I have prime but it's technically the only streaming service I pay for. But for $200 a month, I'd have to watch TV like it was a full time job.

I don't mind. My woman enjoys the TV shows and movies and I enjoy the power of FIOS. No complaints in 10 years.

I do a writeoff on my taxes for it as a business expense.

 

[terzaerian]

I do a writeoff on my taxes for it as a business expense.

I'm starting to wonder if your whole account here isn't just a meticulously crafted troll.

 

[okie11]

I guess I'm in the minority here, as I don't pay for any channels.

 

[Bulllee]

I'm starting to wonder if your whole account here isn't just a meticulously crafted troll.

Class comment but hate myself for replying.
Oh well.

 

[Jpe1701]

Where I live satellite tv is the only choice other than streaming. I have really slow internet though which makes it challenging, but it usually works out well because we rarely all try to watch at the same time. I am really pulling for starlink to do well though. Believe it or not I have never actually seen anything at home in 4k. Lol. 4Mbps dsl is disgraceful for living right in the 48 contiguous states.

 

[Bulllee]

Traditional cable works wonders where I live but the streets get longer.

 

[Lionvibez]

I don't mind. My woman enjoys the TV shows and movies and I enjoy the power of FIOS. No complaints in 10 years.

I do a writeoff on my taxes for it as a business expense.

This is one of the reason I like that both me and my girl have our own places and do not live together.

She loves traditional cable TV, spends hours surfing on the guide etc then complains there is nothing to watch, while paying a rental fee for a cable box.

For me I ditched all of that because I'm not as heavy into tv as she is. The only thing I kept expensive was my 1Gbps Fiber connection since I'm an IT guy and use the internet heavily. I was paying those $200+ cable bills like you were and glad that is gone.

That extra money now goes to the vacation fund for the year. And I think its a much better use for that money. Instead of feeding it to the Monopolistic cable company.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I dropped Netflix for Prime Video (paid yearly) and YouTube Premium (paid monthly).

The biggest problem I have with some subscriptions are the pre-authorized payments. That's why I'm stopping at having these two. The next problem is keeping track of multiple subscriptions and payment dates. Yuck.

 

[Raytrace3D]

I've got YouTube TV, Netflix, Hulu, and PBS... that's way more than 50 a month. haha

 

[Inthenstus]

HBO, Showtime, Cinemax...we pay about $200 a month for all premium channels on Verizon FIOS.

I refuse to pay a dime more.

The only other subscriptions I run are Sirius XM which is about $20 a month.

You’re throwing money into a furnace.

 

[Vrmithrax]

That $50 a month range isn't strange at all to me, but I think the more interesting question would be how many are spending $50 or more on top of a cable or satellite TV service? The total being paid for content (streaming and traditional cable) is much more telling, in my opinion.

I was paying for Netflix and Prime on top of cable, back a few years ago. Got tired or the constant ridiculous rate hikes and song and dance you had to do with Comcast to keep the TV portion of my bill manageable, then decided to just cut to internet only. Picked up a good digital antenna for local channels, Sling and Hulu subs, and doing the math I'm a bit over the $50 a month in streaming but I'm still saving $100 a month by not paying for cable TV.

 

[Homerlovesbeer]

No mention of Amazon prime?

 

[Vrmithrax]

No mention of Amazon prime?

I noticed that too, but realistically Prime is only partially a streaming service, there are a lot of other facets to it. Hard to put that into the statistics and not skew the results, when there are people out there who only have Prime for things like the shipping bonuses and/or Prime Music stuff. People subscribing to Hulu or Neflix are only there to watch content, nothing else.

 

[okie11]

It still amazes me how much people drop on all of them, cable tv, internet, streaming. Do you really watch any of them enough to make it worth it. I'm fortunate enough where I don't have to pay for any of them, if I did I don't think I'd have any channels at all.

 

[terzaerian]

You’re throwing money into a furnace.

No, he's throwing our money into a furnace and self-gratifying over his cleverness by writing it off on his taxes and gloating about it.

 

[Scshadow]

I don't mind. My woman enjoys the TV shows and movies and I enjoy the power of FIOS. No complaints in 10 years.

I do a writeoff on my taxes for it as a business expense.

I guess I misunderstood. If its $200 but you are getting Gigabit Fiber in addition to TV, that alone is worth $100 for me. I presume you are getting write off for work at home? I gotta see what I can write off this year for work from home.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

Damn....I'm not even average

I feel like such a loser! Me and my paltry $21 a month on streaming services! I suck!

 

[wiyosaya]

Damn....I'm not even average

I feel like such a loser! Me and my paltry $21 a month on streaming services! I suck!

You're not alone. I am only spending a paltry $13.99/mo on Netflix. I recently dropped Hulu, and dropped Amazon Prime years ago. I do, though, give $250/yr to our local PBS station.

And I've recently started borrowing disks from our local library. The library is a large resource of excellent material, IMO, that many do not even consider. My TV viewing other than streaming, and borrowing from the library is all OTA.

Personally, I do not consider what I pay for an ISP as part of my subscription prices - and that just dropped $10/mo as I just had 500/50 FTTH installed for $50/mo dropping from $60/mo for 100/10 with Spectrum.