May 17th, 2024, Lesley Simeon
For a long time, streaming services were synonymous with offering premium, interruption-free experiences. But in the recent past, almost all leading platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+ and Disney+ have tried adding an ad-supported layer.
Ad-supported tiers offer the eternal lure of a lower price, compared to the costlier ad-free experience. But how many minutes of advertising in an hour of ad-supported streaming content are consumers willing to trade for the cost benefit?
A recent YouGov survey asked consumers across 17 international markets what is the maximum number of minutes of ads per hour that they would find acceptable in an ad-supported streaming TV subscription. Unsurprisingly, consumers aren’t fans of endless ad interruptions between their war-time sagas or period dramas. Nearly a third of respondents (32%) across markets place the limit at up to 2 minutes of ads per hour and for a little over one in five (21%), 3-5 minutes is the limit.
Less than one in ten (9%) would find 6-10 minutes of ad time per hour acceptable.
There are consumers, few as they might be, who would accept an ad load of over 15 minutes per hour. For example, 2% are fine with 16-20 minutes of ad time per hour, while another 2% are fine with more than 20 minutes of ads per hour.
Nearly one in five (18%) consumers want nothing to do with ads, at least when streaming – they wouldn’t opt for an ad-supported streaming model at all.
YouGov data presents a clear picture - a majority of viewers would either prefer ads per hour to be limited to two minutes, or range between three to five minutes. The next preferred option for most countries is not opting for an ad tier at all.
Data from YouGov Surveys: Serviced reveals that viewers in Indonesia (45%) are the most likely to find ad time per hour on ad-supported streaming services to be limited to up to 2 minutes acceptable. Consumers in Singapore (40%) and the UAE (40%) follow those in Indonesia.
Nearly a quarter of Swedes (24%), Spanish (24%), Brits (23%), Poles (23%) and Hong Kongers (23%) find 3-5 minutes of ad time acceptable per hour. Equal proportions of respondents in Sweden (14%) and India (14%) are okay pushing the limit a bit further to 6-10 minutes.
Indians also account for the largest proportion of consumers (7%) who say they’re okay with viewing ads for 11-15 minutes per hour, while 5% of Indonesians are fine sitting through 16-20 minutes of ad time per hour on ad-supported streaming services.
As for those who are happy with more than 20 minutes of advertising per hour, viewers in India (6%) and UAE (6%) lead.
Consumers in the Nordic markets surveyed are most likely to say they’d rather stay away from ad interruptions completely. Nearly three in ten Danes (29%) and Swedes (27%) wouldn’t opt for ad-supported streaming model, followed by Germans (who at 16%, even account for the largest proportion of those across markets who don’t use streaming services).
In the US advertisers and platforms met for the TV Upfronts 2024 this week. Both parties would find it interesting to know that two in ten American respondents (21%) say they wouldn’t opt for an ad-supported streaming model. Among those who would be open to advertising, 22% say they would find an ad load of 3-5 minutes per hour of ad-supported streaming content acceptable. For just over a quarter of those polled in the US (26%), up to 2 minutes is ideal: only 10% say they have an appetite for 6-10 minutes of advertising.
Respondents in Europe are more likely than those in Asia to not sign up for ad-supported offerings – good news, perhaps, for brands like Paramount that are expanding premium versions of their streaming services across Europe.
In Asia, Singaporeans (20%) are the most likely to do the same.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 17 markets with sample sizes varying between 500 and 2040 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in January 2024. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash