The over-the-top devil is in the details.
While OTT services are rapidly rising in use, so is consumers’ savvy in piggybacking onto their friends’ and family’s OTT subscriptions. More than 57% of all broadband homes use over the-top video subscription services, but the sharing of such services is also on the rise, to the tune of 11% of homes exclusively using a buddy’s account for OTT viewing, said Parks Associates in just-released research.
When it comes to sharing, picture the college graduate who accesses HBO Go by logging in with his parent’s account, and so on. This reliance on someone else’s log-in represents lost revenue for content providers. More than one-third of SVOD content consumed each week is via over-the top, but it only accounts for 9% of the household video expenditure, Parks Associates said in its report.
In younger households, the practice is even more common, and 22% of consumers 18 to 24 who watch OTT are using someone else’s subscription.
From the article "Consumers Share Log-Ins For OTT Services, Slice Into Revenue" by Daisy Whitney.