INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Streaming video services invest heavily in technology to improve their ability to show users a set of personalized recommendations about
But according to a new research study released today by UserTesting, it seems that consumers aren&t watching much recommended content & in
fact, only 29 percent of the study participants said they actually watched something the service recommended.
On some services, those
figures were extremely low & for example, only 6 percent of HBO NOW users said they watched recommended content.
That probably because
consumers found it difficult to locate HBO NOW recommendations in the first place
The service was given a low 16.8 &customer experience&score on this front, the study says
That a much lower score than all other services analyzed, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and YouTube TV & all of which had
(See first chart, below).
To be fair, HBO NOW doesn&t really do recommendations in the same way as the others.
Its app offers a &Featured&
selection of content for all users, and, if you scroll down further, there are a couple of editorial collections, like &Essential HBO& or
&14 Hidden Gems You Missed the First Time.& A separate &Collections& section includes more of these suggestions, like &New Movies,& &Just
Added,& &Last Chance& and others.
The lack of personalized, easily located recommendations also impacted HBO NOW overall score in the
UserTesting study, which rated the services across a variety of metrics including availability of content, friction-free viewing, ease of
scrubbing and episode scanning, and other factors
HBO NOW was also was dinged by survey respondents for lagging, freezing and buffering issues, though they said they appreciated its clean
design.
Netflix overall score was 89.5, making it the highest-rated streaming service among those analyzed due to having the most relevant
recommendations, overall high ease-of-use, and a speedy service
It was followed by Hulu (86.8), Amazon Prime (85), YouTube TV (80.7), and then HBO NOW (71.8).
Coincidentally, Netflix also just beat HBO in
a survey related to consumer appreciation for original programming, put out by Morgan Stanley.39 percent of respondents in that survey said
Netflix had the &best original programming& compared with HBO second place rank of 14 percent.
UserTesting study also backed up earlier
research from Deloitte, as it found that subscription video customers are having to subscribe to more than one service in order to find all
the content they want to watch.
More than half said they subscribe to at least two apps
For example, 90 percent of HBO NOW customers also subscribed to Netflix, while 80 percent subscribed to Amazon Prime.
The study additionally
found that much of viewing (45%) takes place on TV or via streaming media devices like Roku, Apple TV, or Amazon Fire TV
37 percent preferred laptops, and 11 percent said their smartphone or tablet was their primary streaming device
For some services, TV viewing is even higher & Hulu recently said that the majority & 78 percent & takes place on TVs.
UserTesting study
involved 500 subscription video customers, 74 percent of whom said they watched streaming media every day
The full report is available here.
