Dramatic shifts in consumer behavior, driven by concerns about inflation and recession, will create a dramatically different market for Pay TV and over-the-top (OTT) streaming service providers as 2023 unfolds, according to Jon Kirchner, chief executive officer of Xperi. 

Subscribers, he says, are revisiting digital entertainment budgets that ballooned in the aftermath of the global pandemic and are developing strategies to better control investments in content, online gaming and other digital experiences.

According to Parks Associates’ latest research, annual sports OTT subscription revenue in the United States was $13.1 billion in 2022 and will almost double to approximately $22.6 billion in 2027, a 73% increase over the next five years. The new industry report OTT & Sports: Services and Strategies for Growth examines key trends in sports content and provides an overview of the pay-TV sports media landscape, OTT sports services, direct-to-consumer trends, and the sports fan viewing experience.

A new Parks Associates whitepaper, Optimizing Video, Enhancing Content Performance for OTT Success, reports that nearly half of OTT subscribers hop between services, outside of Netflix, multiple times over a 12-month period. The whitepaper, released in partnership with SymphonyAI Media, examines the current state of the competitive streaming video market and the benefits of implementing data-driven solutions able to handle today's complex revenue models.

Parks Associates’ recent consumer research finds that 83% of US internet households now subscribe to at least one OTT service, while 45% still subscribe to the traditional linear pay-TV service model. The firm’s new whitepaper, Engaging Next-Gen Video Viewers: Leveraging AI and ML, developed in partnership with FPT Software, addresses the increased use of video services, content preferences, discovery challenges, and the role of bundles.

Parks Associates’ new consumer study reveals 40 million US internet households trialed and subscribed to at least one OTT service in the first half of 2021.

Halted production of new content, along with a dramatic increase of consumer demand for video entertainment throughout the COVID-19 crisis, has placed unprecedented demands on the content libraries of broadcasters and streaming providers. As content owners mine their inventory of episodic series and movies produced decades ago, they are exploring how to up-convert content to meet the elevated viewing standards of today’s consumers.

A whopping 58.7 percent of TV homes in the U.S. now own at least one Internet-enabled device capable of streaming to a TV set, according to Nielsen’s Q2 2017 Total Audience Report. The emergence of such devices is satiating consumers’ desire to access content with the press of a button.

Parks Associates has released its updated list of the top 10 subscription over-the-top (OTT) video services in the U.S. market, based on number of subscribers -- and Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu continue to hold the top three slots.  Meanwhile, HBO Now made a significant move into the top five.