Always On: The Streaming Landscape

Welcome to Always On, your weekly deep dive into the brand and audience trends shaping headlines — and strategies.

Each week, we’ll dig into a brand or audience trend you need to know about, tapping into Morning Consult Intelligence, our always-on insights platform powered by 15,000 daily surveys across 40+ countries. That means thousands of brands, audience deep dives, and enough fresh data to make your spreadsheets jealous. Sign-up here to get this email sent to you directly every week.

If you’re anything like me, you’re entering the year paying for more streaming services than ever before. 2025 is the year of the TV in my household, with half a dozen or so of our favorite shows returning with new seasons.

All that has me wondering: How are these platforms doing? How do their audiences differ? And just exactly how much money am I spending on streaming services every month?

I won’t embarrass myself by answering that last question here, but we can use Morning Consult’s Intelligence platform to answer the others. First, let’s level-set: Netflix may continue to lead the pack, but other brands have caught up in terms of favorability and just about everyone is trending in the right direction.

Here, you see brands like Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Paramount Plus are starting to encroach on Netflix’s dominance amongst the general population while others like Apple TV+ and Max still have a ways to go.

You can do just about anything with survey data — except go back in time. That’s why there’s so much value to the years of survey data in Morning Consult Intelligence, so we can see how brand metrics and audiences are shifting historically from years ago. Morning Consult has completed more than half a million interviews about Netflix alone since 2016.

That historical data is how we’re able to measure the impact major moments have on a brand’s buzz and purchasing consideration — like my colleague Nicki Zink did in August when she noticed the 2025 Olympics were giving Peacock a boost amongst Gen Z users.

Fast Facts About Streaming Platforms

Paramount Plus has grown the most amongst Gen Z in recent years
To be fair, Paramount Plus is one of the newer platforms in the streaming game. But other platforms’ growth with Gen Z is starting to flatline. Paramount Plus has grown just as much amongst this demographic in the past 3 years as Apple TV+ has in the last 6.

Apple TV+ is struggling to match its competitors growth
Since Sept. 2019, usage of Apple TV+ in the U.S. has grown by 19 points. Other platforms that are new to the landscape have grown by much more — Disney+ is up by 34 points and Peacock is up by 44 points.

Just 26% of Amazon Prime Video users are using Twitch
That’s just a few points higher than the portion of the general population using the social media platform, despite the fact that Amazon Prime subscribers get a free premium Twitch channel subscription as a perk.

Many Netflix users are branching out to another streaming service
In the past year, 74% of Netflix users were also on Amazon Prime and 67% were also on Hulu. Apple TV+ is the least used streaming platform among Netflix users — but even they garner 36% of Netflix’s base.

Let's Go Deeper

The reality is many people who stream movies or TV aren’t doing so on just one platform — they’re paying multiple subscriptions every month. Let’s take a look at who these super streamers are. In Morning Consult Intelligence, we built an audience of users who are active on all three of the biggest platforms — Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ — at least monthly. What can Morning Consult Audience data tell us about these users?

They’re young.
They’re 14 points more likely to be millennials and 8 points more likely to be Gen Zers compared to the general population

They’re high(er) income.
These super streamers are 8 points more likely to report an annual income of over $100k.

They’re more likely to have kids.
Super streamers are 15 points more likely than the general population to report having children in their household.

They’re not just streaming shows.
These users are 27 points more likely to be on Spotify. And across the board, these users are more likely to be using every social media platform.

Extra Credit

Not done binging about streaming analysis and insights? We got a couple more reads for you here. 

How the Big Streaming Services Stack Up Heading Into 2025 (AdWeek): What to expect from the big players in a tumultuous streaming climate 

The Media Diets of Luxury Consumers (Morning Consult Pro): The demographics, psychographics and media consumption habits of luxury consumers reveal what drives their spending and where advertisers can — and can’t — reach them.

Netflix shares hit record as subscriber growth defies odds once again (Reuters): Citing its investment in sports content, Netflix added a record 18.9 million subscribers in the most recent quarter.