As U.S. consumers increasingly switch to connected televisions, finding something to stream in a sea of content offerings has become a challenge.
New data from LG Ad Solutions found that the average U.S. household spends 5.7 minutes searching for content to stream. Although viewers are streaming more free, ad-supported TV, nearly half of U.S. households aren’t sure what they want to watch when they turn on the television. And even if they know what they want to watch, 40% are confused on where to find that content.
“Consumers take almost 6 minutes on average to select a piece of content to watch after turning on the TV,” Tony Marlow, CMO of LG Ad Solutions, said in a statement. “This presents a great opportunity for streamers to leverage Smart TV homepages for content discovery.”
Marlow contends the data indicates that 39% of viewers have used recommendations from their TV’s homepage when they’re looking for something new to watch.
“We anticipate that number to increase as Smart TV adoption continues to climb,” he said. “The home screen is the new center of the CTV experience where consumers can search for specific content, and find recommendations when they aren’t sure what they want to watch.”
The study, based on a survey more than 750 U.S. consumers in March 2023, found that almost one in two viewers (46%) have canceled a streaming service to save money. Further, 59% of viewers are willing to cancel a subscription after finishing their desired content, supporting the trend that subscribers are hopping between services to keep costs down.
Another 63% of consumers prefer to stream free content rather than paying for a subscription. Over the next 12 months, 32% of consumers will remove a subscription CTV service and 21% will add more free, ad-supported CTV services, according to the report.
Finally, 39% of survey respondents said they have searched online and 37% have visited a website after seeing a CTV ad.
“This means not only do streamers need to promote their content to lure overwhelmed consumers in, but they also need to have enough to keep them engaged and on the app or channel,” Marlow said.
Source: mediaplaynews.com
