HBO Max is Adding Ads
HBO Max is adding an ad-supported tier to its service in the spring of 2021. According to reports from AT&T, HBO Max will limit the amount of ads to four per hour for TV episodes and two minutes per hour for movies. The company is still working through what content will carry the ad loads and pricing for the new ad supported tier has not yet been announced. As of the end of the second quarter, HBO Max had 3 million retail subscribers and 4.1 million HBO subscribers who activated their HBO Max accounts.
The NPD Take:
- As more services look to ad-supported content to broaden their customer base, some are beginning to look more like mini-cable TV packages.
- The question remains, at what point, ads or no ads, do customers realize that paying for multiple separate services may be as expensive as the old school cable bundle? As more viewers recognize the inconvenience, we’ll enter the next phase of The Great Re-Bundling.
15 Million Peacocks
NBCUniversal announced that the new streaming service, Peacock, reached 15 million sign-ups, a 50 percent increase in just six weeks. These include free and paid accounts as well as those bundled with existing Comcast or Cox cable packages. However, the company did not specify how many sign-us were in each tier. The company is already about half way to the goal of reaching 30-35 million accounts by 2024.
The NPD Take:
- With consumers still wary of heading back to movie theaters, and likely running out of favorite shows to watch on other platforms, Peacock seems to be benefitting from the seismic shift to all things streaming.
- Having a free tier option to get consumers into the platform maximized early sign-ups, ad-revenues and the potential to upsell those subscribers to Premium.
33m Tubi (device) users
Tubi, now owned by FOX, announced some stellar user and engagement numbers. The company cited having 33 million monthly active users. However, it was noted that it is a count of devices that interact with Tubi apps, meaning someone that engages on multiple TVs or mobile devices would be counted more than one. Regardless, that’s 65 percent growth over last year and the engagement numbers are strong too. Tubi said its total viewing time was more than 200 million hours streamed in April and that it’s been above 200 million hours each month since.
The NPD Take:
- These growth figures provide further support that free streaming video will continue to be a growing part of viewer’s TV time. To date, it’s been supplemental, and for that to change the programming array must continue to expand.
- Just like Peacock’s access to NBC content, Tubi’s access to FOX programming will be critical to seeing sustained growth.