The fight for viewers among streaming services has reached new heights. With Amazon winning big at the Emmy's and Netflix releasing its first feature film, getting new viewers is serious business, and rightly so.
The streaming services business is valued at $25.30 billion and projected to grow to $61.40 billion in 2019. Capturing 1% of this business can make the difference between longevity and burnout.
So what's the ultimate goal of the streaming companies? Emmy's, Oscars…are they going for the EGOT? Probably not. But they do want to change the way viewers consume over-the-top content, with hopes of increasing the number of subscribers tuning in on a regular basis.
And streaming services providers have got their hearts set on attracting a group of power viewers who seem to overindex on just about anything digital: U.S. Hispanics.
Netflix launched its first ever original Spanish language show, Club de Cuervos on August 7th. They also launched another new Latino series, Narcos, which has already proven to be a hit.
Hulu has been on the Latino bandwagon for several years now with its original series, East Los High, which garnered three Daytime Emmy nominations this year.
Amazon Prime has been quiet on the Hispanic content front, but it is important to note Gael Garcia Bernal's outstanding performance in the lead role of their original series, Mozart in the Jungle.
So what is it about U.S. Hispanics that have the top streaming providers going after them? Well, they are watching A LOT of streaming content. A recent study shows how Hispanic compare to non-Hispanics in terms of binge-viewing, and there were some serious differences. For example, 40% of Hispanic watch 3 or more episodes of their favorite show in one sitting vs. 29% of non-Hispanics. This trend continues if we look at super binge viewers, 8+ episodes in one viewing, almost 10% of Hispanics report super binge viewing vs. only 3% of non-Hispanics.
Netflix just released their internal research outlining exactly how many shows it takes for us to get sucked into watching the entire season. They haven’t broken out the data by ethnicity, but I bet there are some differences there and the data above points to a demographic that is extremely engaged with streaming content.
So what does it all mean? As the competition for viewership continues to heat up between the major streaming players and up and comers like Yip TV and DIRECTV’s Hispanic-focused offering, YaVeo, we’re likely to see more and more content focused towards grabbing the attention of U.S. Hispanic viewers.
The winner will be the company who can create content that not only appeals directly to U.S. Hispanic consumers, but also captures an increasingly multicultural minded non-Hispanic viewer in its wake.