Online streaming is a large and rapidly growing market with many large companies such as Disney, Amazon and Apple vying for audience’s attention. Students represent a significant portion of this market, as young people are more likely than any other demographic to use streaming services. This project aimed to assess the streaming service preferences of University of Chichester students and identify how streaming services could best appeal to UoC students.
The 5 most popular streaming services were Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, Disney+ and All4. Netflix was the preferred service with students with students spending far more time on the service than on any others. While a large number of students used Prime Video, most were primarily interested in the other benefits of prime, only watching Prime Video because they already had Prime. Disney+ was also highly popular among students, particularly for its Marvel and Star Wars content. As a new entrant in to the market Disney+ is a strong competitor for the more established services, at least for student’s viewership. The other new entrants, Apple TV+ and Britbox were far less popular with students.
Student’s typically watched around 4 different services, across all services only around half the students using the service were paying for it, with the rest using someone else’s account.
Students like to binge watch content and prefer their streaming services to have large libraries which are updated regularly. Students are also particular about what they want to watch however, preferring services that will give them content from franchises and series they already like over content they don’t know.
To attract students streaming services need to offer them something they want and can’t get elsewhere, otherwise the service will get lost in the clutter of today’s streaming market. Once students are using a service, regular new content updates and original series will keep them around.