With the Presto SVOD service to cease in January next year, where will its subscribers look to for a replacement service?Roy Morgan Research SVOD and pay TV subscription data to August shows that 143,000 Australian homes (1.5 per cent) currently subscribe to Presto, with 77 per cent already having other pay or subscription TV services.
According to Roy Morgan, 55 per cent of Presto homes currently also have Netflix, with 27 per cent having Stan, while 48 per cent of Presto subscribers already have Foxtel, with almost all of them using a set-top box, not the streaming Foxtel Play.
143,000 Presto homes: what else do they have?
 |
| Source: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia, March to August 2016, sample n = 412 Presto subscribers aged 14+. |
Looking at the types of subscribing homes by household life stage, Roy Morgan finds that half of homes with Netflix or Stan are “young” households, with the oldest resident aged under 45, with 16 per cent young singles, 11 per cent young couples, 23 per cent young parents, while 15 per cent are mid-life families, such as homes with older parents and teens.
Meanwhile, the majority of homes with Foxtel are mid-life households (33 per cent) and older households (28 per cent).
“Presto lies somewhere in between, with more young singles, young couples and mid-life families among its audience than Foxtel has, and more mid-life and older households than Netflix and Stan,” Roy Morgan states.
“This more centric status suggests subscribers could be swayed to either direction. This will require some creative product development and packaging, and a solid understanding of the drivers of choice between the various services.”
Roy Morgan notes that young parents are the one stand-out segment for Presto, which at 29 per cent is more than found on Netflix, Stan and Foxtel.
% Of providers’ subscribing homes in each household life stage segment
 |
| Source: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia, March to August 2016, samples n = 412 Presto subscribers, 5,682 Netflix or Stan subscribers, and 6,884 Foxtel subscribers aged 14+. Figures may not add to 100% due to rounding. |
“Presto struggled since its inception to gain a foothold in the booming SVOD market, despite a comparable price and range of television and film content, including exclusives,” Roy Morgan Research CEO Michele Levine commented.
“Analysis of the subscribing homes suggests Presto occupied a difficult middle-ground, somewhere between Netflix and Stan at one end and Foxtel at the other.”
Levine noted that Stan rather than Foxtel could be “the provider with the most to gain from the end of Presto”.
“There are over 100,000 Presto subscribers who don’t already have Stan – and will have a spare $10 a month to spend on SVOD come the new year,” she stated.
“However, a deeper psychographic analysis of why some people choose to pay a more substantial amount for a Foxtel subscription while others opt for the newer, cheaper alternatives shows there’s much more to it than household life stage or ability to pay.
“Issues of confliction with technology adoption, traditional vs progressive values, and which suburbs people live in, all make a difference in the choices people make.”
