Survey: Only 1 in 5 People Know What They Want to Watch Before Turning On the TV
New data from TiVo highlights the challenges streamers have in recommending new content to customers.
Content discovery was a different challenge 15 years ago. Before the spread of on-demand streaming, customers could flip on their TV sets to “discover” what was being delivered to them on a given channel. If they didn’t want to watch it, they could change to another channel or turn off their set. Streaming has changed all of that, and now customers are often paralyzed by choice when scrolling through the thousands of on-demand titles a typical streamer has on offer. A new survey from TiVo which examines video trends in North America in the fourth quarter of 2023 shows that despite the best efforts of streaming providers, challenges in helping viewers find something new to watch persist.
- Only 19% of respondents to TiVo’s survey know what they want to watch ahead of time.
- Over 40% of viewers say their top method of discovery is word of mouth/friend recommendations.
- Streamers should leverage customer data to better understand which demographic groups are watching which content.
The data from TiVo shows conclusively that streaming providers cannot simply offer a “Recommended for You” tile row on their home screens and call it a day. Fewer than one in five respondents (19%) said they knew what they wanted to watch when they turned on their TVs, and it falls on providers to meet these customers where they are by providing the most relevant recommendations possible.
A survey from August 2023 showed that viewers spend an average of more than 10 minutes trying to find a new title to watch, and TiVo’s data reinforces that notion. Its numbers show that 45.9% of respondents browse two or three different services before settling on a title, and that a mere 24.8% look through just one streamer before turning something on.
The TiVo survey also showed that word of mouth was still the most effective content discovery method out there. At a rate of 43.2%, respondents to TiVo said they most often heard about new shows and movies they wanted to watch through a friend or acquaintance, whereas just 28.9% said home screen/carousel ads led them to a new show or movie.
TiVo’s data also shows why so-called “ad-free” streaming plans really aren’t devoid of ads. Services like Max and Paramount+ show ads for other content appearing on their platforms before playback begins on ad-free tiers, and considering that ads running during other shows are a top method of new content discovery for users, this isn’t likely to stop any time soon.
How Can Streamers Improve Content Discovery?
Streaming providers know full well that viewers are still having a hard time finding something new to watch on their platforms. Disney made big behind-the-scenes changes to metadata when it began introducing Hulu content onto Disney+, with the goal of making it easier for Disney+ customers to find content most relevant to them when scrolling Hulu titles.
The more streamers can get viewers watching new titles on their platforms, the less likely they are to cancel their subscriptions. So how can providers make it easier for viewers to find new series and films if personalized recommendations aren’t enough? The best idea would be to further leverage customer data to help dig deeper into fan preferences.
To be sure, streamers already use information provided by customers to help make content recommendations. But since word-of-mouth from friends is the most likely method to lead to adoption of a new series or movie, streamers would be best served by digging deeper into the demographics of a given title’s audience. Recommending a new title based on how popular it is among similarly-aged viewers in a given area of the country who have a watch history similar to the user’s, for example, will improve odds that customers try a new title as opposed to just using one of these data points.
Should streamers consider adding a more social aspect to brighten content discovery prospects? Allowing customers to add their friends on a streaming platform would give providers even more data on what a given customer’s closest associates are watching, and will better help them lead viewers to shows and movies.
Increasing personalization options in this way will require some complex new algorithms from streaming engineers, and will take time to bring to customers. But providers have to try something; the churn rate has risen 300% in the past four years industry-wide, and the number of new, net streaming subscriptions in 2023 was as small as it’s ever been. Viewers are perfectly willing to cancel a service once the title they came for is over, and TiVo’s new survey is just the latest proof that audiences are craving better content discovery methods.
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.”