As the streaming wars are heating up, Likewise, the smart recommendation app, has published research,which reveals that over half of Americans with a streaming service (57 per cent) believe that there are too many streaming services. The average streaming household has three streaming services and 70 per cent of those surveyed agreed that despite having access to so much content, they often struggle to figure out what to watch next.

To address this, Likewise has launched Likewise TV, a new app for Apple TV designed to help people discover, save, and watch TV shows and movies across their streaming services. Likewise users can discover new shows across all of their channels and streaming platforms and use one watchlist to track what they want to watch in the future. The launch of Likewise TV brings these features to Apple TV, where users can now view their watchlist and launch shows directly from the Likewise TV app, eliminating the need to skip from service to service.

“The bottom line is that people need help figuring out what to watch and where to watch it. That’s the problem we’re solving for Likewise users and why we created the Likewise TV app,” commented Ian Morris, CEO of Likewise. “Streaming services are attempting to provide recommendations to their viewers, but only for shows on that particular service, leaving people frustrated as they are forced to hop from one service to another to discover and watch their favourite movies and TV shows.”

This research confirms that Americans are becoming overwhelmed when trying to decide what to watch and where to watch it. On average streamers are spending more than 15 minutes trying to decide what to watch before diving into their next TV show or movie. In fact, nearly one in five spend more than 20 minutes reviewing their choices whenever they are looking for something new to watch.

Key findings about streaming users from the survey include:

• Half (49 per cent) say they spend too much time trying to find new things to watch and that number increases sharply for people with more services: 39 per cent for people with 1 streaming service, 49 per cent for people with 2-4, and 68 per cent for those with 5 or more.
• 44 per cent find navigating multiple streaming services frustrating and confusing.
• 59 per cent say that they often get frustrated when they can’t find a specific show or movie.
• 86 per cent say that recommendations from friends and family are useful in deciding what to watch next.
• Over a third (36 per cent) of users with more than one streaming service plan to cancel at least one of their current streaming services within the next year. This increases to 59 per cent for those that have 5 or more services.

“The explosion of content on the small screen is a double-edged sword for viewers,” added Morris. “We have more high-quality choices than ever before, but we’re wasting hours and hours looking for the next Game of Thrones or Stranger Things. The onslaught of new streaming services combined with content shuffling from one service to another is making people frustrated. And our research findings suggest that their frustration is about to get far worse as the streaming wars kick into high gear with the launch of Apple TV+ on November 1st and Disney+ on November 12th.”

These will be followed in the coming months by the launch of HBO Max (from WarnerMedia), and Peacock (from NBCUniversal).

Despite feeling overwhelmed, almost half (47 per cent) of streaming users expect to subscribe to at least one new streaming service within the next year, highlighting the need for Likewise TV:

• 41 per cent would consider subscribing to Disney+, rising to 60 per cent for those aged 25-34.
• Only 25 per cent would consider subscribing to Apple TV+, with most interest coming from 18-24 year olds, 35 per cent of whom would consider subscribing.
• 25 per cent would consider subscribing to HBO Max, with most interest coming from 35-44 year olds, 32 per cent of whom would consider subscribing.
• Only 8 per cent would consider subscribing to Peacock by NBCUniversal.

Likewise was born out of Bill Gates’ private office to provide better recommendations by connecting people to thoughtfully curated recommendations from friends, family, and other groups that they trust.

Categories: Articles, Consumer Behaviour, IPG, Research, Search/Recommendation, VOD