Pay TV vs Streaming Services: Top Four Critical Categories

The Hollywood Reporter surveyed 2,201 US adults on their satisfaction with pay TV and streaming service in 16 categories. The four critical categories include: content, live and news, cost, and service feature. Streaming services beat pay TV three of four categories.

• Content – those surveyed said that both selection and quality of TV shows and movies are superior in streaming services. Consumers of pay TV and consumers of streaming services are both satisfied with the quality and quantity of content.
• Live and news – 86% of those surveyed are satisfied with their news selection with pay TV, compared to the 61% for streaming. News and sports have proven to be a weak point for streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu (excluding Hulu Live).
• Cost – It comes as no surprise that more consumers are satisfied with the cost of their streaming services than with pay TV. 79% said they are somewhat or very satisfied with the price of their streaming services while less than 50% said the same for their pay TV service.
• Service feature – Consumers are consistently more satisfied with the exclusive content, on-demand access, and device support provided by streaming services.

Additional findings include:

• PwC predicts that sports rights will have an annual growth rate of 4.5% through 2022, contributing to growing license fees. Since sports are one of pay TV’s biggest advantages over streaming services, managing costs for inflation will pose challenge to keep prices competitive.
• While pay TV currently holds an advantage over streaming services with the news, online services are gaining traction and eroding that advantage.

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