Streaming’s big pain point: there’s too much stuff to watch

There’s more places than ever to stream TV shows, but consumers are struggling to wade through the content morasses, according to new data from Nielsen.

US consumers say they spend an average of 10 minutes and 30 seconds looking for something to watch, up more than three minutes from the time spent looking for programming four years ago, according to global video data from the Nielsen metadata firm Gracenote.

Beyond that, 1 in 5 consumers report giving up entirely, according to a June 2023 consumer survey conducted by Nielsen—representing a missed opportunity for streamers looking to engage with those viewers (or serve them ads).

Content overload: The amount of available streaming programming is on the rise. In July 2021, there were a whopping 1.9 million video titles across the TV landscape available to viewers in the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, and Germany, 89% of which was available on streaming. Two years later, and that number of total titles has increased to 2.7 million, nearly 87% of which were available on streaming.

Many of those titles are available on multiple streaming catalogs, like the second-most popular streamed show, Suits, which is available in the US on both Netflix and Peacock.

As title availability grows, so, too, is the number of places where consumers might go to stream. Audiences in the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, and Germany have almost 40,000 channels, aggregators, and streaming services to choose from, according to Gracenote, with about 80% of them available in the US.

Not so original: While original TV shows often get the most marketing buzz, acquired content often drives the most overall viewership on streaming platforms. In the US, nearly two-thirds of time spent streaming in May of this year went to shows that first aired on linear TV, Gracenote found.

The good news (for advertisers)? Ad-supported viewing is on the rise. In the US, viewing on subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) declined to about half of all streaming viewing by May 2023, while ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) grew to about one-quarter of TV viewing. Overall, ad revenue on AVOD services is expected to hit $91 billion in 2028, while revenue on free, ad-supported streaming (FAST) is expected to clear $18 billion in 2028, according to Digital TV Research.