Over 50% of Viewers Are Frustrated by Long Searches to Find Content; Streaming Bundles, Aggregators Increasingly Important
Data from Accenture shows that 52% of respondents said recommended content on streaming platforms does not match their interests.
“Spoiled for choice” takes on a different meaning when applied to streaming services. Indeed, in this context, the phrase might be more accurate if it were changed to “overwhelmed with choice,” at least according to a new survey from the global professional services firm Accenture. The new report has a wide range of important data points for streaming providers like Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video, but perhaps its most crucial findings are in regard to issues of content discovery and customer frustration.
- Accenture’s survey found that 54% of customers spend six or more minutes finding something new to stream, and 30% browse for 10 or more minutes.
- More than half of customers say recommended content rows do not provide titles that match their interests.
- The data also found that 56% of customers report being frustrated at having to pay for multiple platforms to get all the content they want.
The data from Accenture shows that streamers need to go back to work on their content discovery algorithms. It found that a majority of respondents (54%) said that they spent more than six minutes finding something new to watch in 2023, up from 50% the year before. For 30% of Accenture survey participants, that number climbed to more than 10 minutes per browsing session.
Worse for streaming providers, the data shows that a majority of viewers say that efforts to suggest series and movies that viewers will want to stream next are not proving effective. Fifty-two percent of respondents to Accenture said that recommended titles shown by streaming providers do not actually promote titles they’re interested in watching.
This suggests that streamers need to beef up their content recommendation algorithms that take more information about the individual customer into account. As the number of streaming titles available increases, customer frustration with the ability to find new content will only rise. The industry-wide churn rate has already risen 300% in the past four years, and the rise in the number of customers who say that finding a new show to watch is taking them six minutes or more suggests the problem is getting worse, not better.
Accenture’s findings buttress a survey released last week by TiVo, which found that the most common way viewers discover a new streaming title is being told by a friend or acquaintance. Fewer than 30% of respondents to that survey said that titles recommended by streaming platforms themselves were their top mode of discovering new content.
How Bundles and Aggregators Could Help, Hurt Content Discovery
The Accenture survey also includes some data that points to the conclusion that streamers will have to start aggregating their platforms onto single apps going forward. According to Accenture, 56% of viewers are frustrated with having to pay for multiple services to get all the content they want, and 66% found it inconvenient to have to enter login credentials repeatedly to watch different titles.
This could be good news for Disney, which could to be taking steps to offer all of its sports and entertainment content from its streamers and TV channels on a single streaming app. Paramount+ and Peacock, who have had discussions regarding combining onto a single product for customers to access, could also benefit.
But it will also lead to platforms that have even more content for viewers to sift through before finding something new to stream. It also creates opportunities for viewers to find series and films they never would have watched otherwise, but that makes it all the more crucial for engineers responsible for improving content recommendation engines to do their jobs well.
The new survey from Accenture proves that streamers have a worsening problem on their hands. Customers simply aren’t willing to keep looking for something new to watch on their favorite streaming service and are quite ready to cancel their subscriptions and save money rather than stay subscribed and wait for a new show to debut. Streamers have to start consolidating and make meaningful improvements to their content discovery algorithms if they want to meaningfully increase engagement.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”