2024 State of Play
Global streaming insights and the content that keeps viewers hitting play
The importance of content has never been greater for global streaming services. Now evolved from subscription-driven growth strategies, providers are leaning into a mix of high-profile originals, sports and deep content libraries to entice viewers and keep them engaged once they’ve tuned in.
This year’s State of Play report highlights key findings from an in-depth analysis of the content distributed by the industry’s leading subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services. Streaming platforms, publishers and studios can use these insights to refine their distribution strategies and develop personalized content journeys for audiences who are hungry for content, yet unsure how to find what they’re looking for.
Key report findings:
- 93% of the content that global SVOD services offer is exclusive to an individual service, but much of it isn’t being watched.
- Licensed TV shows drive nearly twice the viewership of original programming, but much of that viewership is for non-exclusive content.
- Less than 12% of SVOD content was produced before 1990, and over 80% was produced in the last 35 years.
- SVOD content is increasingly global: only 44% was produced in the U.S.
- Drama is the dominant genre and tense is the most common mood across SVOD content.
SVOD catalogs are big business, but they’re vastly underutilized
Recent TV viewership trends suggest that many SVOD services might not be getting their money’s worth from the majority of the content they distribute.
What’s new in SVOD? Most of its content
Despite the wealth of variety available on streaming services, the overwhelming majority of programming is very new.
TV audiences need more than recommendations; they need reasons to watch
With so much content, an abundance of services and no program schedules, audiences are overwhelmed and rarely know what they want to watch when they tune in.