Nearly one on three streaming TV users are unable to find a single streaming service that offers access to all the broadcast and cable networks they want to watch, according to a new report released by MyBundle on Wednesday.
The report, authored by MyBundle Chief Revenue Officer Michael Goldstein and published by Hub Entertainment Research, said more than one million broadband Internet users have used MyBundle’s streaming recommendation tool to select the broadcast and cable channels they want out of a streaming service, then receive guidance on the streaming services that offer some, if not all, of those channels.
When a user fires up the MyBundle recommendation tool, they’re greeted with a list of around two dozen popular channels to choose from — including all four major broadcast networks, plus USA, ESPN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, FX, Foox Channel, History, USA, TBS and Bravo. They can also select from other national, regional and interest-specific networks, including regional sports channels and harder-to-find networks like ESPN U, Universal Kids and Ovation.
Since the recommendation tool launched several years ago, TV fans have collectively searched for access to 548 linear broadcast, cable and streaming channels, Goldstein affirmed. During the most-recent quarter of this year, there were searches for 399 different channels, he affirmed.
Larger households are likely to encounter this issue more often: Users who identify as belonging to a “very large family” search for an average of 22 channels per session, while those who say they’re just looking for recommendations for themselves tend to select around 12 channels per session.
“This underscores what we’ve always believed: the right bundle is unique to each household,” Goldstein wrote.
There are some common themes to those searches: According to Goldstein, interest in live weather forecasts and related programming remains high, with 17 percent of all searchers looking for access to The Weather Channel each month.
College sports networks are among some of the more-popular channels searched on the MyBundle tool, with cable channels like ESPN U, SEC Network, Big Ten Network and ACC Network “climbing in popularity,” Goldstein said.
The uptick in college sports-related services might be attributed to two things: The rights to college sports programming is becoming increasingly fractured, with the CW Network, ABC, Fox and TNT inking broadcast deals with various athletic conferences over the past few years. Typically, college sports-specific channels like SEC Network, ACC Network and the now-defunct Longhorn Network have been offered by few streaming TV providers, and those that do carry them typically don’t market their availability very well.
That might explain another trend that MyBundle has seen: There aren’t as many searches for general entertainment networks like AMC, TNT and the CW Network (the latter of which is usually available with an antenna).
Among sports fans, streamers in the Midwestern states are 8 percent more-likely to prioritize access to sports-inclusive channels compared to those on the East Coast, and 10 percent more likely to prioritize those channels compared to streamers in the South and on the West Coast.
News channels also rank high in some states as an essential channel, though there are some key political divides. Unsurprisingly, streamers in Mississippi and Texas rank Fox News as a must-need channel, while those in California and Washington, D.C. say the same for MSNBC.
“If there’s one overarching insight, it’s this: streaming is intensely personal,” Goldstein wrote. “Forty-one percent of households need between 1 and 10 channels, 30 percent need 11 to 20, 15 percent need 21 to 30 and 14 percent need over 30.”
The report comes on the heels of an announcement that MyBundle will launch a platform that aggregates and markets the best Black Friday deals on streaming services.
In a joint interview with The Desk and The Streaming Wars earlier this month, MyBundle CEO Jason Cohen said the Black Friday platform will aggregate the best streaming deals on the market, even if the company doesn’t have a direct business relationship with a service. It will also help streaming services with their marketing initiatives, by giving them a path to market their Black Friday deals to more 200 MyBundle broadband partners who have a reach of over 13.5 million Internet subscribers.
“Most consumers aren’t waking up on Thursday, Friday or Monday saying, I’m going to hunt for all these streaming services,” Cohen said. “We already have a ‘Best Deals’ section on the MyBundle marketplace, where we’re listing different bundles at difference price points, and as more bundles come out, we want to play a role in helping consumers find the ones that are right for them.”
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Editor’s note: This story was updated Friday morning to clarify one of the statistics offered in the research report.
