American AVOD consumers
AVOD usage in the United States is growing each year, and larger services are seeing consistent subscriber increases each quarter. Pluto TV that is operated by U.S.-based ViacomCBS grew its userbase by around 20 million between 2020 and 2021 alone, whilst Tubi drew in thirteen million monthly active users worldwide between summer 2019 and 2020. Roku is also going from strength to strength, having quintupled its number of MAUs in five years and acquiring short-form video streaming platform Quibi.As the AVOD arm of the video streaming market develops, consumption is increasing. The share of people accessing ad-supported streaming platforms increased between the second and third quarter of 2021, reaching 21 percent of U.S. consumers.
Content on AVOD platforms
AVOD platforms are responding to this heightened level of engagement. AVOD catalog turnover is generally higher than that of SVOD platforms: a snapshot taken in mid-2020 showed that less than five percent of Hulu’s, Netflix’s, and Disney Plus’s content was refreshed over the course of a month, compared to over 15 percent of the content on Pluto TV and Roku.The sheer amount of content on AVOD services is also an appealing prospect for potential and current users. SVOD platforms tend to focus on high-profile content, meaning that SVOD content catalogs are smaller but in theory have a higher concentration of the latest blockbusters and in-demand TV shows. For consumers unwilling to financially commit to SVOD and who prefer larger content libraries, AVOD is a good option.
Although ad-supported and subscription-based video services are not necessarily in competition with one another, each model appeals to different audiences, with AVOD viewers tending to be older and on a lower income than SVOD users. The video streaming market as a whole is approaching a state of universal appeal in that there are multiple options available according to price, content variety and quality, and ease of use. With no subscription fees and expanding content libraries, the AVOD segment could have a bright future. A recently published forecast even found that the penetration rate of AVOD would surpass that of SVOD by 2022.
