Almost two fifths of US broadband homes use transactional VoD

Barbara Kraus

Some 37% of US broadband households regularly use transactional services to access over-the-top (OTT) video – including online video rentals and downloads – according to Parks Associates. 

The research firm said that roughly two thirds of Amazon Prime Instant Video subscribers also rent or buy titles through Amazon, with the “vast majority” of SVoD customers also making a la carte purchases.

“Subscription services are the most popular form of OTT video, but a transactional service that offers a wide selection of titles and easy-to-use controls can score with consumers and create new revenues,” said Barbara Kraus, director of research, Parks Associates.

She added that for these services to succeed, they must have a large selection of titles available. Kraus claimed that the Redbox Instant service, which Verizon and Redbox closed this week, “failed in large part because only a limited number of titles were available to rent through its streaming library.”

The new Parks research found that among frequent users of streaming media players, 80% pay for monthly streaming services, such as Netflix, but nearly 30% also stream video rentals and 20% buy video to stream.