Survey: Consumers Use Franchises to Differentiate Between Streamers; Marvel is Biggest Draw

It’s hard not to discuss the streaming market these days without acknowledging how packed it is. There are hundreds of subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services to choose from, and the coming age of aggregation will not spare them all.

A new survey from Hub Research is demonstrating which streamers will be most likely to survive. The survey puts one problem streaming services face in a crowded market front and center: brand recognition. All of the top SVOD services in the United States have brand awareness of over 90%, but none of them crack that threshold when it comes to users who are confident they could explain the difference between one service and the others. Netflix was the closest, with 79% of its subscribers saying they could differentiate Netflix from its peers.

People are more likely to use other guideposts to tell streamers apart, such as the franchises they house. Hub’s data found that 41% of streaming users signed up for a service for a single show in the last year. That’s an increase over the previous two years, but it’s still short of the 64% of customers who acknowledged doing so at any time in the past during a survey earlier this year from All About Cookies.

Which franchises stand out the best? Hub’s survey indicates that Marvel takes home the top spot, with 40% of respondents saying they would be more likely to watch a new show from the MCU, the most of all franchises surveyed. That’s good news for Disney which is looking to build on its successful franchises more heavily, though it has announced it is paring back on Marvel TV shows to focus on quality over quantity.

Two of the remaining top four franchises (CSI and NCIS) are CBS shows, so their on-demand home is Paramount+. The numbers from Hub also indicate that Paramount is doing a good job building its franchises, at least when it comes to the Sheridan-verse. Among respondents who said they had watched “Yellowstone,” 70% also watched at least one other show from creator and producing machine Taylor Sheridan. This is especially impressive considering that “Yellowstone” streams on Peacock, while all of Sheridan’s other content resides on Paramount+.

Like Disney, Paramount is another company that is leaning heavily into franchises these days. There will be a heavy focus on Sheridan and his universe going forward, and Paramount is also intending to develop several spin-offs of Showtime franchises “Billions” and “Dexter” as it slows its content spend and prepares to merge Showtime and Paramount+.

The survey from Hub indicates that streamers leaning into franchise content are meeting users where they are. Warner Bros. Discovery is also doubling down on its franchise programming, with more projects coming from “Lord of the Rings,” DC Comics, “Game of Thrones,” and others to both HBO Max and theaters around the globe. It’s a good strategy overall, as long as media companies are able to give fans of these franchises quality content.

“Viewers have not lacked in choice of services and content over the past few years,” said David Tice, senior consultant to Hub and co-author of the study. “But this can be a two-edged sword for content providers, as the immense volume just makes it hard for viewers to remember what is different about each service. But at the end of the day, content is king, and unique content will drive viewers even if the service itself isn’t unique to consumers.”