Ampere Analysis’s research suggests that consumers are increasingly bringing together services from different providers to build their own perfect TV offer. Our survey of 53,000 internet users across Europe and North America over the past 18 months reveals a dramatic increase in the proportion of consumers combining traditional pay TV services with subscription OTT options. At the end of Q1 2017, 40% of respondents had built a custom TV bundle, up from 24% in mid-2015. At the same time, the research shows the proportion of consumers taking pay TV alone across the surveyed markets has declined from 49% of internet users in Q3 2015 to just 30% at the start of 2017.

This trend for doubling-up is not simply restricted to pay TV and subscription VoD combinations. Households with access to subscription on-demand in Europe and North America are now typically taking between two and three SVoD services each. Netflix and Amazon have been the catalysts, accounting for more than half of SVoD contracts across the markets surveyed by Ampere Analysis. In the core Amazon Prime territories of the US, Germany and the UK, two thirds of Amazon Prime Video users subscribe to Netflix. However, market-specific services are also crucial to this trend. In the UK, for instance, nearly three quarters of Now TV subscribers take Netflix. Four in five Hulu subscribers in the US take Netflix, and two thirds have Amazon Prime Video.