This summer, full of global sporting events such as Euro football, the Conmebol Copa America and the Summer Olympics in Paris, attracted many new users to streaming services. For example, the Olympics were the reason for one in four new Discovery+ customers to subscribe in the past quarter, according to a recent study by Entertainment on Demand research agency Kantar.
The sports offering on VOD services continues to grow, as it is live streaming of sporting events that is a strong draw for new users. In the third quarter of this year, half of households watched sports, compared to just 44% in the second quarter. Up to 56% of new viewers were women and almost half (48%) were people over 55.
Discovery+, which during the Olympics uploaded more than 3,800 hours of live coverage alongside Max and HBO Max and up to 54 simultaneous streams at any one time, is one of the fastest growing streaming platforms year-on-year this year, along with Apple TV+. For the second and third quarters, Prime Video from Amazon gained the most new subscribers.
"Sports fans are a highly engaged and valuable audience who are showing greater satisfaction and loyalty to their regular TV services. However, success with sports on on-demand services requires more than just broadcast rights - leading players must invest in high quality streaming, top-notch commentators and interactive features to build a devoted sports audience," said Andrew Skerratt of Kantar.
New users were most likely to vote for SVOD services (39%), services offering their content for a subscription fee, followed by AVOD services (29%), platforms offering content for free with advertising support, which gained 8% more 'subscribers' compared to Q2. Almost a quarter of new users (24%) then chose free TV streaming services, referred to by the acronym FAST.
Six countries were tracked in the study: Australia, France, Germany, Spain, the US and the UK, with French people watching the most sport (57%) and British people watching the least (41%). In European markets, football was the most watched sport.
Source: KantarSource: mediaguru.cz
