Friction TV Addressing the user experience disconnect in streaming TV

20,000 foot view:  Streaming TV is now the default way to consume TV content. However, the streaming TV era is now the friction TV era, due to the fragmented nature of the direct-to-consumer            siloed, competing brands. Consumers require multiple services with different user experiences to engage in the full range of TV content previously available in one ecosystem. Short of reaggregation, cross-silo content discovery and curation experiences are now essential to take the friction out of the streaming TV user experience, with the next evolution of the screen (e.g., virtual reality and the self-driving car) to follow over the subsequent five years. 

Key insights 

• In            2022,            consumers relied on personal recommendations            new TV content
• This discovery            is at its most extreme            younger demographics who over-index for            recommendations, highlighting a growing ‘discovery           
• The discovery            is fuelling a sense of            because of the lost time            searching for watchable content
• The emergence            streaming TV as a mainstream            means that the            user experiences            to be bound together
• Currently, service            experience alternatives lag behind personal            for content discovery
• With fragmentation            unsolved, virtual reality (VR) and            vehicles are gearing up to            the next screens in search            a user experience solution –            the current user experience crisis

Companies and brands mentioned in this report:            Apple, HBO Max, Meta, Netflix, Paramount, Paramount+, Peacock, and Reality Labs.