SAN JOSE, Calif.—Despite current economic pressures, consumers are watching more video entertainment than in the previous five years, but in a more fragmented media environment, according to TiVo’s Q4 2025 Video Trends Report.

Consumers are watching more video daily than at any time since the 2021 pandemic era, with households returning to an average of more than 10 video services in Q4 2025, TiVo said. This represents peak media consumption following a brief decline in 2024. For the quarter, viewing surpassed five hours per day and monthly entertainment spending rose to $161, reflecting year-over-year growth after a post-pandemic dip.

Looking at consumed content, local programming accounts for nearly 30% of total viewing time, an increase of approximately five percentage points year over year. Sports also remain a key driver of engagement, with nearly 60% of sports viewers relying on pay TV as their primary source. Live and local content continues to anchor viewing behavior in a notably fragmented environment.

“The findings reinforce that video serves as a historically resilient, high-priority category, even as the entertainment landscape grows increasingly fragmented and competitive,” TiVo said.

As entertainment ecosystems continue to expand, viewing preferences remain relatively stable. About half of respondents prefer that streaming services release an entire season at once, compared to roughly 20% who favor a weekly episode rollout, underscoring continued demand for convenience and flexible viewing experiences.

“Consumers are watching more video than ever before, but they’re enjoying that content across an increasingly fragmented mix of platforms and services,” said Geir Skaaden, chief products and services officer at Xperi. “As the entertainment ecosystem continues to expand, helping viewers easily discover and access the content they want has become more important than ever. For advertisers and platforms alike, delivering simple, seamless viewing experiences will be critical to reaching audiences and keeping them engaged.”

While viewing continues to expand across platforms, content discovery remains a growing challenge. As households manage more services, viewers are navigating a complex content ecosystem, with 40% of consumers checking two to three different apps before deciding what to watch. Discovery is also shifting beyond the platforms themselves, with word of mouth (49%) and social media (40%) most often influencing viewers. This reliance on external inputs, combined with increased fragmentation, is making content discovery less efficient and more frustrating for viewers.

“The number of viewing options available to consumers continues to grow, but what is most notable is how audiences are responding to that expansion,” Alan Wolk, TVREV’s co-founder and lead analyst, said. “Consumers are becoming more selective about where they spend their time and money, and entertainment services remain a priority. Live sports and local programming serve as important anchors, while the broader market is shifting toward simpler, more value-conscious viewing choices. The industry is entering a phase where effective curation and discovery matter just as much as scale.”

Additional report highlights:

• Ad-supported growth: More than half of consumers (54%) now use ad-supported subscription tiers, while AVOD/FAST adoption rose to 70% in Q4 2025, up five percentage points year over year. AVOD and FAST services now account for 13% of total viewing time.
• FAST audiences are watching more: The average FAST user now watches 7.5 channels, up more than two channels year over year. Pluto TV, Tubi, Roku Channel and Amazon Prime Video remain the leading FAST destinations.
• Discovery extends beyond apps: Smart TV home screens are becoming increasingly important gateways for content discovery and advertising, with owners spending 57% of their non-viewing time on the home screen.
• Consumers are prioritizing value: More than 35% of consumers routinely reassess subscriptions and viewing choices to balance cost, access and content availability.
• Fragmentation fuels discovery challenges: As the number of services grows, 40% of consumers report checking multiple apps before deciding what to watch.

The latest TiVo Video Trends Report (available here) surveyed 4,493 adults 18 and older living in the U.S. and Canada during the fourth quarter of 2025.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Viewers are increasing their consumption of local TV content according to TiVo's latest report on video trends.

The results of TiVo’s Q2 2025 Video Trends Report show that the importance of local content has increased over the past year, with 61% of respondents noting that it is somewhat or very important compared to 54.8% in Q2 2024. More so, 29.8% of all time spent watching video is spent watching local content, compared to 21% in Q2 2024 and 22.6% in Q2 2023.

The report, released this week, also shows video service bundles continue to gain traction, indicating that consumers value the ability to access content across multiple services. Despite price increases and cost-conscious consumers, video spend is up year-over-year, as is the time spent watching video content. The average number of services consumers use has climbed from nine to 10, further underscoring the trend.

Bundles enable consumers to access various types of content, letting them stay in the same service or family of apps to meet a variety of viewership needs. Of the available services, 87% of respondents use SVOD services, with the top three ad-supported SVOD tiers being Peacock (69.3%), Paramount+ (59.7%), and Prime Video (59.1%). Subscribers select services based on the available content, seeking expansive programming libraries (38.4%), original content (35.2%) and specific show availability (29.8%).

“Today’s content landscape is full of unparalleled choice and variety, as consumers have more options than ever before,” said Xperi’s chief product and services officer Geir Skaaden. “Consumers are looking for simplification by increasingly opting into the bundles and platforms that provide the highest-quality content for their household at the best value. These offerings are delivering the convenience of a single destination for diverse content, now enhanced by personalization and immediate access that provides a seamless viewership experience.”

The report also found:

• Backseat binging: The rear passenger seat is the most popular spot for in-car viewing, with 42.3% of passengers watching from there. Respondents who watch video in-car spend 56.7% watching short-form content and 43.3% watching long-form, remaining consistent with last year’s breakdown.
• Cord cutters remorse: The share of respondents who cut the cord but later decided to resubscribe to a traditional TV service increased about 10% to 31.9% in Q2 2025. When it comes to potential cord cutters’ preferred methods for watching live TV without cable, most still express a preference for a live TV streaming service with the distribution of prospective methods remaining relatively consistent.
• Smart TVs are a smart buy: Smart TV ownership continues to rise (75.2%) and more than half of respondents (55%) considered the TV platform to be at least moderately important, up 5% from Q2 2024.
• When you watch TV matters: The latest report details the first major shift in daytime viewership. Q2 2025 saw that 41.5% of SVOD content is consumed during primetime, with 15.5% of SVOD content consumed during the morning, compared to 48.6% and 11% in Q2 2024.

The latest TiVo Video Trends Report surveyed 4,510 adults 18 and older living in the U.S. and Canada (3,509 from the U.S. and 1,001 from Canada) during the second quarter of 2025.

More information is available on the company’s website.

SAN CARLOS, CALIF.—The idea of a la carte Pay-TV offerings remains popular among consumers that took part in TiVo’s quarterly Video Trends Report, but the bill they’re willing to foot has taken a dive.

The latest Video Trends Report from TiVo covers Q4 2016, and in it 76.6 percent of respondents said they would like to only pay for the channels they watch, which is up 3 percentage points year-over-year. However, they want to lower the price that each individual channel would cost. The average price respondents wanted to pay per channel was $1.68/month, if that were to include the designated top 20 channels it would come out to $28.87, a 12.3 percent decrease quarter-over-quarter. TiVo’s report indicates that while the reason for this drop in desired price is unknown, the effect of OTT is a likely contributor.

Speaking of the top 20 channels, there is a new entrant into the top 10 most popular channels in a potential a la carte offering. While the major networks—ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox—still hold court along with Discovery Channel, History Channel, A&E, PBS and TNT, TBS was bounced from the top 10 in favor of FX. In addition, ESPN saw a drop in popularity, going from 44 percent of respondents wanting the network to 41.3 percent in Q4 2016.

Elsewhere in the report, the upward trend of TV Everywhere services continues. TiVo says that since 2012 it has seen a slow growth in the adoption of pay-TV providers’ TV Everywhere offerings, but there has been a more consistent growth over the last three quarters. In this most recent quarter, 49.1 percent of respondents said they are aware of their pay-TV providers’ app, the highest total since it has been recorded and a 2 percent growth since Q3 2016 (9.1 percent year-over-year). Similar trends occurred with app adoption and use, as 30.9 percent of respondents say they currently access the app and 61.5 percent use it on a weekly basis.

The TiVo survey is based on the answers of 3,100 respondents.

DURHAM, N.C.—The idea for paying only for the TV channels that you want is still a popular idea among Digitalsmiths 3,100 respondents to its Q4 2015 Video Trends Report, but not as it once was. The report indicates that for the fourth straight quarter the percentage of people want an à la carte channel option has decreased. One possible reason for this could be the emergence of OTT services.

In Q1 of 2015, 81.6 percent of respondents to Digitalsmith’s report said they would like the ability to make their channel package by selecting only the channels they want to watch. But by the end of the year, that number had decreased to 73.6 percent.

A total of 61.3 percent of respondents said that they were aware of OTT services like Hulu, HBO Now, CBS All Access and new offerings like Sling TV and Sony’s PlayStation Vue. Just shy of 20 percent (19.9 percent) or respondents said they subscribed to one or more of these monthly subscriptions. However, those numbers do not include the two most popular OTT services, Netflix and Amazon Prime. Netflix users made 48.1 percent of the respondents, while 19.6 percent of all respondents used Amazon Prime.

The top reasons for respondents using these monthly/rental services have remained practically unchanged since Q2 of 2013. Respondents find them convenient, they are cheaper, and they allow the opportunity to watch certain TV shows and whole seasons.

Digitalsmiths also shows that Pay-TV providers are also helping to ebb the demand for à la carte, but not as much as OTT. Pay-TV providers’ TV Everywhere offerings—i.e. apps on smartphones and tablets—are more of a known factor among respondents. In Q4 2015, 40 percent said they were aware that their pay-TV provider offered an app to watch content, an increase of 13.6 percent over three years. While the percentage of who have the app on their smartphone or tablet decreased 2.4 percent since Q3 2015, 45.4 percent of those that do have it say they use it weekly.

While à la carte is still a popular idea for many respondents, Digitalsmiths report shows that OTT, and to an extend TV Everywhere, services are providing new alternatives.

To see the full report visit digitalsmiths.com.