Reports Video

The Case for News in Video D2C Services

Tim Mulligan
Cover image for The Case for News in Video D2C Services
Report Synopsis Presentation Spreadsheet

Get full access to this report and assets

Already a MIDiA client? Login here to view this report.

If you are interested this report, or related reports such as "The Digital News Consumer ", "Truth and Trust in the Era of Fake News ", "D2C 2020 Media and Tech and Communications Majors Go Head to Head" get in touch today to enquire about a report bundle.

The 20,000 Foot View:  Digital disruption of the traditional pay-TV landscape was led by subscription video on demand (SVOD) services using scripted drama to gain consumer adoption, one of pay-TV’s very own four pillars. With SVOD originals strategy now diversifying into factual and reality, the two remaining pay-TV pillars sports and news are all that is stopping SVOD being a full like-for-like replacement for traditional pay-TV. With sports ROI hindered by excessive valuations, news is optimally placed to join scripted drama, factual, and reality at the core of direct-to-consumer            services, catalysed by            live coverage and the growing tribalism of politics.

Key Insights

  • News is            reborn with            of consumers spending            per week consuming news (more            any other media genre)
  • News, however,            a utility rather than fan-focused,            the favourite TV genre for                       of consumers, making it just            sixth most popular genre
  • Yet news            also set to grow, with            consumers intending to increase their            consumption 
  •            and politics catalysed news consumption, with channels on YouTube seeing a            increase in subscribers (nearly twice as quickly as the YouTube average) and a            increase in views from April to October 2020
  • Apple may            particularly well placed in the            of news, with Apple TV+            active users over-indexing for news           
  • News audiences            older with            of news genre            aged           
  • High news            are on higher income, over-indexing            the            household income bracket
  • Digital paid            subscribers over-index for connected device            consumption and under-index for TV-based            consumption
  • Paid news            are digital sophisticates, with only            watching live TV weekly compared            the consumer average of            and            over-index for paid video subscriptions 

Companies and brands mentioned in this report: Amazon, Amazon Prime Video, Apple, Apple TV+, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Peacock, YouTube