Sports has emerged as a major power within streaming services. The latest Entertainment on Demand (EoD) data released by Kantar reveals that sports viewership surged in Q3 2024 thanks to events including the Olympics, distributed on Discovery+/Max/Eurosport.
Kantar says this highlights both the importance of sport to streaming services as well as the need for them to include interactive features to help them compete with traditional broadcasters.
The latest study shows sports viewership was highest in France (57%) and lowest in Great Britain (41%). Notably, of those who didn’t watch sports in Q2 but did this summer, 56% were women and 48% were over 55. Meanwhile, the Olympics accounted for one in four new Discovery+ subscribers in Q3, making it one of the fastest growing services in 2024.
“Live sport is playing an increasingly important role in user retention as it brings in a substantial live viewership that’s rare for other on-demand content,” said Andrew Skerratt, Global Insights Director at Kantar Viewers are excited by advanced technology like interactive statistics and immersive interfaces. Streamers are now using this to cash in on new subscribers – sports fans are a highly engaged, valuable audience who exhibit stronger satisfaction and loyalty to their regular TV services. However, succeeding in sports on demand requires more than content rights. Leading services must invest in high-quality delivery, top-tier commentators and interactive features to build a dedicated sports audience.”
Ad-supported streaming saw significant growth, with AVOD subscriptions (ad-supported video on demand) increasing by 8% quarter-on-quarter and FAST users (free ad-supported streaming TV) growing by 2%.
Among new users, 39% opted for SVOD (subscription video on demand), while AVOD claimed 29%, FAST 24%, and vMVPD (virtual multichannel video programming distributor) services 8%.
