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Why are people unhappy with OTT streaming apps?

Is it a common occurrence at your house – you have 3 or more family members trying to figure out a good movie to watch on one of these channels – Netflix, Prime, Hotstar, SonyLiv, Zee5 or any of the numerous over-the-top streaming apps, and after half an hour of browsing, you all decide that it’s anyway late in the night and decide to call it a day. In effect, you have not been able to make up your mind about what to watch. 

Looks like that your household is not the only one! Let’s find out why.

Survey details 

Accenture put out a survey titled Reinvent for Growth – in January this year, not too far back, and still worth dwelling upon. The survey was conducted across 6,000 consumers in 10 countries, the US and India included – that shows that in these, the largest consumer markets, 72% consumers have trouble picking something to watch. Many are overwhelmed by the choice available but 26% spend more than 10 minutes trying to make a choice, scrolling through the several options on offer. 

Streaming has not delivered the rewards that media companies expected. Accenture points to two factors that have contributed to this decline: one is a marked shift in business models where revenue has supplanted content as the key factor; the second is consumer dissatisfaction with their current media experiences. 

Netflix in North America 

Let’s digress a bit and look at what has been happening in the West. Till about the end of 2021, Netflix could do wrong to both consumers and investors. By early 2022, a sharp stock correction took place, bringing into question, if only temporarily, even its business model and returns potential. 

The company had a poor couple of quarters followed by the massive 73% correction in its stock price since its all-time high of $700 reached in November 2021. The subscriber count dropping was attributed to both inflation pinching pockets and to the ordinary fare on offer on streaming apps. Since then the stock has recovered a bit. After all, at the time, Netflix had pointed out that even in the most advanced streaming market in the world – ie the US – streaming still covered only 29% of total TV time in the market. 

What do customers want? What is turning off customers?

Script and presentation: K. Bharat Kumar

Production: Shibu Narayan

Videography: Johan Sathyadas J