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More Australians pay for Subscription TV than those who don’t

Over 14.5 million Australians now have access to Subscription TV -either as Streaming or Pay TV.

Over 14.5 million Australians now have access to Subscription TV -either as Streaming or Pay TV-, up 8.2% on a year ago.

The combined audience for these services is almost 70% of the Australian population, as new Subscription TV services Apple TV+ and Disney+ enter the market.

New Roy Morgan research shows Netflix remains the market leader, with 11.9 million Australians (57% of the population) now having a Netflix subscription in their household, up 15% on a year ago.

Foxtel has grown its audience by 1.5% to more than 5.2 million over the past 12 months. Its Kayo Sports streaming service has found an audience of 770,000 in the year since it launched, providing a significant boost to Foxtel’s numbers. However Foxtel’s reach of 25% of the population is less than half that of Netflix.

The leading Australian-owned Subscription TV service is Stan, which is now accessible by more than 3.3 million Australians, up an impressive 60.5% on a year ago. Stan is a fully owned subsidiary of the Nine Entertainment company.

These are the latest findings from the Roy Morgan Single Source survey, derived from in-depth face-to-face interviews with around 50,000 Australians each year in their homes.

“The growth in Subscription TV services in Australia has been extraordinary, with Netflix accessible by well over 50% of Australians only four years after launching” said Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine. “Its success, in Australia and elsewhere, has quickly attracted many competitors to the market, including locally owned Stan and cashed up international rivals including YouTube Premium and Amazon Prime Video. What we’re finding is that people are not choosing one or the other, they are having multiple streaming services.”

Sometime in mid-2016 the number of Australians with access to some form of Subscription TV outstripped the number without.

However, even today a significant number of Australians, more than 6.4 million, or nearly a third of the population, don’t use a Subscription TV service – although this is down 10.4% on a year ago. “Free-to-air TV is going to be relevant to those people,” said Ms. Levine, but nonetheless it faces “enormous pressure”.

In recent weeks both Apple TV+ and Disney+ have launched new Subscription TV services in Australia, with Disney having first removed its content from existing services. These new entrants, “are sure to provide intense competition for existing services,” said Ms. Levine, “If Disney can bundle its content with a really good delivery service it will be a major competitor.”

A significant question facing existing services and new entrants to the market, is will Australians use more than one service – and the answer so far is a clear yes.

Netflix and Foxtel is the most popular combination amongst those with two or more services, with nearly 3.4 million Australians having access to both services, up 21.7% on a year ago. However the combination of Netflix and Stan is closing in, with over 3.1 million now accessing both services, up 63.5% on a year ago.

Over 1 million Australians have access to both Foxtel and Stan, an increase of 56.5% on a year ago.

Combinations: Australian users of at least two Pay TV/Subscription TV services – 3 months to October 2019 cf. 3 months to October 2018

The growth in adoption of Pay TV / Subscription TV services over the last four years has been phenomenal and this is largely down to the take-up of Netflix throughout Australia.

The growth in Netflix meant that by August 2016, less than 18 months after its launch, for the first time more Australians had access to Pay TV / Subscription TV than those didn’t. This was also when Netflix passed 5 million household viewers for the first time.

Today over two-thirds of Australians (69%) have access to Pay TV / Subscription TV compared to only 31% that don’t.

Australian users of Pay TV/Subscription TV services: January 2015 – October 2019

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source, January 2015 – October 2019. Rolling quarterly average, n=12,574. Base: Australians aged 14+.

Netflix milestones since launching in Australian on March 24, 2015

• 500,000 viewers: 2 months after launch;
• 1 million viewers: 3 months after launch;
• 1.5 million viewers: 4 months after launch;
• 2 million viewers: 6 months after launch;
• 2.5 million viewers: 7 months after launch;
• 3 million viewers: 10 months after launch;
• 3.5 million viewers: 11 months after launch;
• 4 million viewers: 1 year after launch;
• 5 million viewers: 17 months after launch;
• 6 million viewers: 22 months after launch;
• 7 million viewers: 2 years after launch;
• 8 million viewers: 2 years & 5 months after launch;
• 9 million viewers: 3 years after launch;
• 10 million viewers: 3 years & 4 months after launch;
• 11 million viewers: 4 years after launch.

12 Responses

  1. Subscription rates are much higher as we share Netflix with a friend and I know of many more that do. And why not. Cheaper than Foxtel, no adverts, no watermarks, no pop ups, no over runs, watch what we want when we want and a great variety of shows. Free to air is dying and it’s easy to see why.

  2. thing is now i see ads for shows on other pay tv options and its like that show looks good oh its on so and so and this show looks good oh its on another one , so you would almost have to have all the options foxtel appletv netflix now with foxtel stan amazon the cost for all would be high i think

  3. The message is loud and clear, people want scripted content. Storytelling with cast and crew, less interruptions.
    They also want value for money – this consigns Foxtel as not on most people’s shopping list. I believe Foxtel are under greater pressure than FTA.
    FTA might one day wake up. Not likely under current owners/managers. Eventually somebody there will work this out – one thing: whoever succeeds in fixing FTA will not ever have worked in the sales area, with hours of news, nor stupid reality shows not being part of the solution.

    1. I would say that Foxtel will survive for now simply because its satellite pay TV business can provide consumers with HD and potentially UHD coverage where NBN broadband cannot. When ISP’s start upgrading the NBN, as they inevitably will, then Foxtel will find potential difficulty especially if it limits its R&D future proofing for the next 10 years.
      FTA will keep on keeping on in some form because it invents genres and viewing trends suitable for advertisers, there will always be large numbers of people who will not or cannot pay for their TV entertainment.

  4. I’m a bit confused about the figures quoted and their source. The point about subscription services is that the company providing the service knows exactly how many subscribers they have, but the numbers quoted above don’t seem to come from the actual subscriptions, but from a survey of “50,000 Australians” which would be nowhere near as accurate as the actual subscription numbers?

    1. Subscription services keep their information about subscribers and viewings “commercial in confidence” so they know exactly but try to ensure others do not. So we know what people are watching on FTA and Foxtel, but not what they stream. The sample will be accurate in what it measures.

  5. This subject is interesting (for those who read about AV tech anyway) how pay TV consumers are quickly adapting with the times, I’m sure that the increase in UHD 4K content offered by Netflix and others has sealed the deal for those with new 4K TV’s and home theatre set ups. Offering formats like HDR10 and Dolby Vision represents value for money at least for the mean time and Netflix will only be making high definition 4K content in the future. The challenge is certainly out there for all the competitors in this streaming industry.

    1. I forgot to add that there will be more free streaming apps released in coming years like Plex, but these will come with advertising. I would think that ad agencies will be keen for this development to gain a bigger global audience even though most of the content will be hand me downs and older well known products.

  6. Thanks for running an article that points out that a significant portion of the population do not pay for tv.

    Like facebook users, Pay tv users talk and write as if everyone uses the same platform as they do, and it feels dismissive. It is nice when commenters recognise that there are both demographics in Australia.

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