US SVoD Culture Continues to Strengthen, Reaching 125 Million Subscribers in 2018

Video Entertainment Market Research, Analysis and Commentary

The overall US video and Pay-TV market continues its healthy overall growth and is set to reach $140 billion by the end of 2018, according to the latest video entertainment report from Futuresource Consulting. This is despite the continuously evolving and challenging landscape.

Whilst the USA is a global leader in digital adoption, it continues to have a well-balanced market overall, with an array of formats, platforms, services and business models that is unsurpassed globally.

2017 was characterised by many notable announcements and initiatives in the video and related media space; the introduction of Movies Anywhere, increased availability of 4K UHD content and renewed discussion surrounding digital movie release dates provide an intriguing backdrop for the market in 2018. In addition, the renewed push on direct-to consumer-services, media industry acquisitions and consolidation and regularity impact (e.g. Net Neutrality), will ensure that the landscape in 2018 will continue to evolve.

Pay-TV, largely through increased ARPU rather than subscriber growth, is contributing the most to overall growth in wider video consumer spend, SVoD continues to provide an increasingly significant contribution.

"The SVoD culture continues to strengthen, Futuresource estimates that there are now 125 million SVoD subscriptions in the USA," says David Sidebottom, Principal Analyst at Futuresource Consulting. Although, consumer spend is still just 10% of the total Pay-TV market. Further growth is expected in 2018, driven by continued steady growth in established services and the quick expansion of a plethora of less established services, with platforms such as Amazon Channels helping drive this momentum.

The Pay-TV sector remains immense at over $100 billion in 2017, although it remains challenged. The much-discussed cord-cutting phenomenon has been apparent in 2017 to a small extent, with subscriptions expected to fall by 1% once more in 2018. In the midst of cord-cutting, key Multiple-Service Operators (MSOs) in the market have developed Pay-TV lite services, combining the extended reach of SVoD with the scheduled component of Pay-TV.

Futuresource's Video Insights Series covers over 20 countries worldwide. Each report reviews the overall video entertainment market, assessing the impactors and drivers as the sector transitions to digital. Key areas of coverage include: Packaged home video; DVD & Blu-ray (sell-through and rental); Pay-TV VoD; Online Video; Electronic sell-through; iVoD and subscription online video; Subscription Pay-TV and Box office.

About the author

David Sidebottom

David is a Principal Analyst – Media and Entertainment. David has over 20 years’ experience in a research and consultancy environment and is closely involved in researching, analysing and consulting on key content industry and consumer technology developments worldwide, with a particular focus on the evolution of digital business models in the TV, video and music industry. David works with a wide variety of high profile Futuresource clients across the content ecosystem including studios, broadcasters, technology companies, hardware vendors, service providers and industry associations. He also directs Futuresource’s long-running global consumer panel ‘Living with Digital’.