With Hollywood writers and actors alike on strike together for the first time since the Kennedy Era, the whistle-stop pace of streaming content is suddenly being slowed. And according to recent research by Horizon Media, a majority of viewers are supportive of the strike but won’t back it in the event of higher subscription costs.
Horizon Media recently released "The Tipping Point," a survey conducted on July 18-19 with 600 respondents in the U.S., to gain a little insight on the audiences’ points of view.
To no major shock, consumers largely sided with the creatives (with 45% supporting writers and 39% supporting actors) over the Goliath conglomerate of studios, networks and streaming services — which only garnered a collective 26%. But that support slowed at the topic of rising streaming prices, where 28% of respondents indicated they would be willing to pay higher subscription costs to support union demands. While that number rose to 38% for those supporting the strikers and further for viewers 18-25 and 26-34 (46% and 41% respectively), the majority still fell to budgets unwilling to budge.
“If you compare the amount of people that are for the writers and actors… they’re not really willing to extend that support through paying [higher subscription costs]. They feel it's not on them to necessarily pay it forward,” Horizon SVP of Cultural Intelligence Maxine Gurevich explained to StreamTV Insider.
And when asked what they would do if the strike were to drag on resulting in their favorite shows being unavailable, only 15% of respondents indicated they would cancel their streaming subscription. They did however indicate possible changes in subscription behavior. The alternative viewing habits varied quite a bit based on age, with people 35-49 showing more willingness to subscribe to new platforms, younger audiences 18-25 indicating interest in pausing subscriptions and shifting to social media content and people 50+ more likely to not alter any viewing habits.
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