Study: 36% of American Customers Have Upgraded Their Plans to Avoid Streaming Ads
A new survey from Bango has revealed that audiences value the option to switch away from ad-supported streaming plans highly.
The introduction of ad-supported streaming plans has empowered customers to make choices about their budgets for themselves. They can opt for cheaper plans with ads, or upgrade to ad-free tiers for a few dollars more per month, and a new survey from Bango is revealing that viewers highly value the power of choice offered to them by platforms like Prime Video, Disney+, and Netflix.
- Bango’s survey reveals that 36% of American customers have upgraded to an ad-free plan after ad tiers are introduced.
- Another 31% of customers say they have canceled a streamer due to the introduction of ads, while 35% have become paid subscribers to streaming services they were formerly accessing via a shared password.
- Cable providers are not viewed as preferred streaming aggregators, leaving more opportunity for platforms like Verizon’s +play.
The biggest reveal from the Bango survey is that 36% of American subscribers have upgraded to an ad-free streaming plan in order to avoid ads. That number may be even higher today, as the Bango survey was likely commissioned before Prime Video switched all of its current customers to ad-supported unless they upgraded to an ad-free plan for an extra $2.99 per month.
On its face, this is good news for streaming providers, as they get more customers paying for more expensive products. But providers are actually hoping more customers opt for ad-supported plans, which make up for the lost revenue from customers paying less to subscribe with ad revenues. Usually, ad tiers bring in more money per subscriber for providers than ad-free plans do.
It wasn’t all bad news for streaming services looking to boost revenues, however. The data from Bango also suggests that password-sharing crackdowns from Netflix, and most recently from Disney's streaming services have led to a good portion of former sharers subscribing to their own paid accounts. Bango’s numbers show that 35% of its 5,000 respondents are now paying for a streamer they had been getting free by using someone else’s password. Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann noted in September 2023 that a larger portion of former sharers on that service was signing up for ad-free plans because that’s the level of service they’d grown accustomed to when they were using the account of someone else.
What is the Future of Bundling?
The Streamable has been advising its readers that greater aggregation is coming for the streaming industry for quite some time. That prognostication is being proved true seemingly daily; earlier this month, Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery announced that they were pooling their sports rights for a new streaming service, and last week reports began to circulate that Paramount+ and Peacock could team up as well.
In one sense, this is what customers want. Bango’s survey states that 73% of respondents want a single platform that allows them to pay for their subscriptions in one place, so the fewer payment points there are for streaming customers the better. Hulu and Amazon’s Prime Video Channels also allow customers to add other streamers onto their subscription, but these platforms suffer from holes in their inventory; many streaming services are wary of putting their apps on such aggregation platforms, as they fear they’ll be helping the competition.
Spectrum and Disney have provided one possible solution, as Spectrum TV customers now get access to Disney+ at no additional monthly cost. Cable companies like Spectrum have less incentive to prioritize one streamer over another, but Bango’s survey reveals that customers don’t want cable companies as aggregators. Only 29% of respondents said they wanted their cable companies to be the ones responsible for managing their subscriptions.
Instead, consumers prefer platforms like Verizon’s +play. Fifty percent of Bango’s respondents said they wanted their mobile phone companies to manage their subscriptions, and streamers have shown a willingness to play nice with each other on such platforms; Netflix recently introduced a bundle with Max that is only available for select Verizon subscribers, for example.
Customers clearly value the ability to choose between streaming plans, even if they can’t afford to remain ad-free on every streaming service. Bango’s survey makes it plain that ad-free streaming plans aren’t likely to disappear any time soon, and that password-sharing restrictions are successful in getting former sharers to become paying customers.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.