More Australians now hold subscriptions to video-on-demand services than to Foxtel’s pay-TV package, according to Roy Morgan Research.
Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services including Netflix, Stan, Presto, Quickflix, YouTube Red and Foxtel Play, can now be found in the homes of 28% of Australian homes (some 5,595,000), with Netflix dominating the market. This compares to the 27% reach that Foxtel’s linear pay-TV has in the country.
Although SVOD – and Netflix in particular – has taken Australia by storm since its launch in early 2015, the number of subscribers to Foxtel’s pay-TV offering has also risen by an average of nearly 100,000 per quarter, said Roy Morgan. Additionally, IPTV services offered by Fetch and Foxtel through T-Box, have also attracted more viewers in the past year, with a total of 629,000 subscribers – up by 100,000 since the start of 2015.
In the six months to August 2016, 9.8 million Australians 14+ (50%) had access to one or more types of paid TV services in their home: SVOD, linear broadcast pay-TV and IPTV, said Roy Morgan.
“Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh [has] announced the pay-TV provider plans to better compete with Netflix and Stan in the blossoming subscription video-on-demand market by both enhancing and discounting Foxtel Play. At the ASTRA subscription media conference in Sydney, he reportedly highlighted that the ‘vast majority’ of TV viewing is still ‘live and linear’— that is, watched via a broadcast — but that Foxtel knows it still needs to develop some kind of competitive foothold in SVOD,” said Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan Research.
“Mr Tonagh’s claim is correct, with free-to-air television reaching nine in ten Australians. However our latest research shows that, when it comes to paying for content, SVOD is already now more common than linear Foxtel.
“Foxtel’s long-term strength will, as Mr Tonagh noted, be in offering live sport and linear programming, including premium content sourced through its deal with HBO. However as more Australians choose to access content on demand, Foxtel will need to find creative ways to straddle both markets — which appeal to quite different people, with different budgets, tastes and habits,” added Roy Morgan’s Levine.