Thinkbox have released their latest report exploring the top TV trends for 2022, and what they’ll look like moving into 2023. One of the biggest changes in the TV landscape is the slowing of SVOD’s trajectory. Over the last few years, the growth and potential of SVOD services has been a highly talked about subject, however this report now suggests that we are entering a period of the plateauing in SVOD’s progress.

For the first time ever, we saw a drop in SVOD viewership from an average of 54 minutes a day in 2021 to 46 minutes in 2022. This slump in SVOD viewership has been attributed to a couple of reasons such as the cost-of-living crisis putting a strain on SVOD subscriptions and unnaturally high TV viewing in lockdown. Across the AV world, viewership levels were stagnant in 2022, showing very little change bar usual seasonal fluctuations, with SVOD services all showing a dip in views compared to previous years.

The 16-34 age group in particular are notorious for their use of streaming services, but this report reminds us of the importance of Commercial TV to this group. In terms of reach and hours, Commercial TV has proved vital in accessing this audience, with an average of 4.9 million 16–34s viewers a day, for an average of 2 hrs 18 mins, higher than all Netflix and SVOD services.

Only time will tell whether we will see SVOD bounce back in 2023 or if this is indeed the start of a levelling out in the AV landscape and stability of viewership patterns.

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