The bloated number of streaming options scatters viewers across an array of services. That’s consequential for advertisers because fragmented audiences make ad campaign planning and measurement more onerous.
There are more than 200 global streaming services, according to Flixed, yet the number of services continues to grow. Due to mergers and acquisitions, it’s not unusual for a single media conglomerate to operate numerous streaming services. For example, ViacomCBS now has multiple subscription services (Paramount+, Showtime, BET+) and free apps (CBS News and Pluto TV), in addition to services like its sports app that require an authenticated pay TV login to stream television broadcasts.
The expansion of streaming services also matters to users. The number of streaming services that people use has expanded as more streamers have launched, per TiVo, but they still use only a small fraction of the total streaming services available.