Half of US Households Now Use 2 or More Streaming Services

We have more evidence that streaming is replacing cable and satellite. More than half of U.S. households now use at least two streaming services between Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, according to new data from Leichtman Research Group. At 51%, that comes out to about 65 million households altogether, and marks a sharp increase from the 33% of U.S. households that had more than one service in 2017. Bruce Leichtman, the firm’s president and chief analyst, expects this trend to continue as new entrants like Disney+ and Apple TV+ hit the market later this year. “With over half of all households now getting multiple [streaming] services, and new streaming services on the way, it is inevitable that the number of households having and using multiple services will continue to grow,” Leichtman said. “However, with expanded options, consumers will increasingly decide which streaming services they pay for directly, and which they share with others.” Netflix — despite losing U.S. customers for the first time ever during Q2 — still laps the field, with 60 million American subscribers. Hulu, including its customers paying for live TV, revealed it had 28 million customers in May. The new data comes as millions of customers have increasingly ditched their cable and satellite providers. The traditional TV industry just lost 1.5 million customers during the second quarter — setting a record for quarterly futility. In the last year, about 5 million customers have cut the cord. Some of these old-school TV providers have looked to keep their customers around by offering their own streaming TV services, such as AT&T Now and Dish’s Sling TV, for a cheaper price.  But even those streaming customers haven’t offset the cord-cutting losses — and the numbers are trending in the wrong direction. Those two services combined for 4.1 million customers at this time last year; now they’ve slipped to 3.8 million total subscribers. Expectedly, streaming’s rise has been spurred in large by younger viewers. More than 50% of Americans ages 18-34 use at least one streaming service daily, compared to 34% of Americans ages 35-54 streaming on a daily basis.