Many Consumers To Continue Paid Streaming Services Post-COVID

A new survey from TransUnion finds 56% of U.S. adults saying they’ve increased their use of paid streaming services since the pandemic started in March, and 45% saying that they’ll “make paid services a permanent part of their lives” going forward.

The online survey of 2,639 consumers, statistically representative of the 18-and-older U.S. population, was conducted during the week of May 18 and has a +/- 3% margin of error.

That last finding seems to contrast rather starkly with a recent Magid survey of a somewhat narrower population, U.S. sports viewers 18 to 64, which found those viewers saying they’re likely to return to less intense, pre-COVID streaming habits once live sports programming becomes available again on traditional TV as well as other platforms.

Overall, TransUnion found 92% of U.S. adults saying that they now subscribe to at least one paid television or audio streaming service.

And nearly half (48%) report subscribing to three to five services now, up from 37% prior to the pandemic.

Half (53%) of respondents overall now report using a subscription streaming service in place of a traditional cable TV package, but that proportion rises to 65% among those 18 to 29 and 63% among those 30 to 44. Among those 45 to 60 and 60-plus, 46% and 34% use streaming instead of cable TV. The results don't indicate whether these respondents are cord cutters or cord nevers.

On the flip side, just 35% to 37% of the two younger segments have both content streaming services and cable TV packages, while 54% and 66% of the two older segments now have both.

Smart TV is the most popular streaming device overall, with 37% using this platform. But a quarter of those 18 to 29 prefer mobile devices for streaming, and 19% of those 30 to 44 prefer OTT devices.

Those 60 and up show the highest preference for smart TVs (41%), with computers being their second choice — but fully 19% said they don’t stream at all.