Today, Parks Associates announced new research that revealed nearly 60% of U.S. broadband households subscribe to an OTT video subscription, but account sharing is a lingering challenge. According to a 3Q 2014 survey of U.S. broadband households, 8% are using a subscription OTT video account held by someone outside of their home, and 6% are exclusively using shared accounts to access subscription OTT video content. This finding equates to 11% of all households that are relying exclusively on shared accounts when using subscription OTT services.

The research, Segmentation: Sources and Spending, shows 11% of Netflix subscribers, 10% of Hulu Plus subscribers, and 5% of Amazon Prime Instant Video subscribers are using an account paid for by someone else. Account sharing is highest among younger households, where 22% of those 18-24 who use an OTT service use a subscription paid by someone outside of their household. This OTT account-sharing research includes OTT services that are independent of pay-TV services.

This research comes from a 1Q 2015 online survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households and a 3Q 2014 online survey of the same number of U.S. broadband households.

Additional Parks Associates research:

• 57% of U.S. broadband households have an OTT video subscription
• 17% of U.S. broadband households are likely to subscribe to an OTT video service from HBO
• 75% of North American OTT video service providers use a subscription-based business model, either exclusively subscription or combined with advertising or transactions
• OTT video accounts for a disproportionate amount of content consumed when compared to expenditure—over one-third of video consumed per week is OTT, but it is only 9% of the household video budget

For more information on this or other Parks Associates research, contact the firm via email. If you would like to interview an analyst on this topic, please contact Holly Sprague.

Further Reading:

• Nearly 60% of U.S. broadband households use OTT video services, but “Account Sharing” is prevalent
• Will HBO's Streaming-Only Service be a Pay-TV Killer?
• The Skinny on HBO, OTT, and cord-cutting