With streaming services having grown at an unprecedented rate for the past few years, it’s not surprising that, by many accounts, they’ve begun to plateau. While these platforms may feel more ubiquitous in our lives than ever, some studies indicate that people are beginning to cut down on their streaming habits, and none has been clearer about this trend than the latest from consumer research platform Attest.
Attest’s media consumption tracker, which tracks the habits of 1,000 consumers in the United States surrounding social media, TV, and audio media, showed losses for all forms of media consumption in the fourth quarter of 2022. Subscription TV services were no different, with the number of Americans who say they don’t use any streaming services at all rising to 15%, a full 2.8 percentage points higher than it had been in the third quarter.
The most prevalent evidence of the decline of streaming services was the total loss in weekly users among most of the major streaming platforms. Disney+ experienced the most significant losses, with the percentage of those surveyed who used the platform at least once a week falling by 5.4%. As with all programming, there are natural rises and falls in content calendars that result in these types of changes. Disney+ did not premiere a new Marvel or Star Wars series in Q4 2022, which likely played a big part in the quarterly downturn.
Following Disney+ in its decline were Hulu and YouTube TV, which had their weekly users fall by 4.6% and 3.9% respectively. Even Apple TV, which has gained traction in recent months, saw its numbers fall by 3.8%. Even Netflix and [Amazon Prime], the two top dogs when it comes to streaming, saw themselves suffering tiny losses. Whether it was the cost of living crisis, seasonal content flux, or holidays eating away at TV time, it seems like many people were streaming less during Q4.
This is not to say that every single streaming service saw its weekly users go down. Peacock emerged as the biggest winner of the study, seeing a 3.4% increase in its weekly users, no doubt aided by its incredibly successful airing of the World Cup. The NBCU streamer was also aided by the fact that it is the streaming home of “Yellowstone,” which the study showed to be the most popular show of the quarter.
While the findings from Attest’s study seem troubling for the streaming industry as a whole, one has to note the relatively small sample size of those surveyed, with only 1,000 consumers participating. Other studies have shown Q4 2022 as a time when streaming increased overall, with Hulu, in particular, seeing decent gains in subscribers over that time period.
While the industry as a whole is certainly in a state of flux, with different trends pointing to some positives and some negatives for streaming, it’s important to take in all of the information available, and this Attest study is a piece of that greater mosaic.