With the ever increasing rise of cable bills and their waning popularity, more than 80% of American people, including college-age students, have taken it upon themselves to find different forms of streaming media.
There are a multitude of different streaming services that are now provided for a monthly fee, and there are different streaming services for different media. Only 10% of Americans have never used streaming services according to Pew Research Center with 9,397 responding panelists.
In interviews conducted by The Rocket, the majority of students mentioned Netflix, notably because of the vast and different categories of content provided by the service. Three out of five interviewees chose this streaming service as their favorite.
“My favorite is Netflix… it has a little of everything from anime to movies to television,” Dylan Pape, a sophomore exercise science major, said.
“Netflix is the preference,” Camerin Lindsey, a senior communication major said.
The next most popular streaming service among interviewees was an anime and anime-related content streaming service known as CrunchyRoll. Two students chose CrunchyRoll as their favorite streaming service.
A student who liked this streaming service noted its longevity as a reason for continued use. Donovan McGranahan, a sophomore exercise science major, mentioned that he heard about the service from a friend in middle school.
“I chose my services based on what is available and what has my main interests,” McGranahan said.
Disney+, a newer streaming service used to watch a number of Disney shows and Disney-related content and movies was also mentioned.
“I mostly watch Disney+ because my favorite programs are related to Disney,” Iris Mintschenko, a freshman accounting major, said.
According to the same study by Pew Research Center, the two most popular streaming services are Netflix and Amazon Prime. 88% of Americans ages 18 through 29 use at least one form of streaming service. Along with the popular choices such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, in the 18 through 29 year old demographic, 72% of viewers say they watch Hulu as one of their streaming services.
On the high end of the viewing, 72% of Americans report using Netflix and 67% say that they utilize Amazon Prime. With that being said, on the lower end of the viewing, AppleTV is at 25% and ESPN is at 21%.
For the time being, streaming services are here to stay. What we are seeing now is a stratification among the most popular platforms, with most consumers opting entirely out of cable. But consumers are now spending almost as much money on multiple streaming platforms, many of which contain ads, as they did in years past with cable.
