近年来，付费流媒体服务的价格持续上涨，导致用户寻求更经济的替代方案。YouTube等免费流媒体平台凭借其丰富的免费内容和低廉的观看门槛，吸引了大量电视观众，市场份额显著增长。Tubi和The Roku Channel等其他免费流媒体服务也呈现快速增长态。尽管免费流媒体服务中包含广告，但消费者似乎愿意接受，以规避高昂的订阅费用。这种趋势可能对付费流媒体的增长模式构成挑战，重演了十年前流媒体服务颠覆传统电视的模式。

💰 **流媒体价格上涨促使消费者转向免费服务**：付费流媒体订阅费用在过去几年中大幅攀升，例如美国八大主要流媒体服务的无广告版本月费已接近122美元，远高于2021年的约83美元。这种“流媒体通胀”现象促使用户寻找更经济实惠的替代方案。

📺 **YouTube等免费流媒体平台市场份额飙升**：自2021年5月开始发布流媒体收视率以来，YouTube在美国的电视观看份额已从5.7%飙升至12.8%，成为市场领导者。Netflix、Disney+和Hulu等付费流媒体的份额则相对停滞或下降，显示出免费服务的强大吸引力。

🚀 **其他免费流媒体服务增长迅速**：除了YouTube，Tubi和The Roku Channel等免费、支持广告的流媒体服务也获得了显著增长。Tubi的收视份额翻倍至2.2%，而The Roku Channel增长更快，达到2.5%，已超越Tubi以及Paramount+、Peacock和HBO Max等付费平台。

⚖️ **消费者愿意接受广告以节省费用**：S&P Global Ratings的分析师指出，消费者似乎愿意忍受广告来避免支付高昂的流媒体订阅费用。即使是年轻人，在同时使用第二屏幕的情况下，也可能不太介意流媒体广告。

🔄 **免费流媒体的崛起可能重演历史**：分析师认为，免费流媒体服务的发展与付费流媒体价格上涨之间存在关联。这种模式类似于十年前流媒体服务兴起时，传统电视价格上涨导致用户流失。如今，免费流媒体正扮演着“廉价挑战者”的角色，可能再次颠覆流媒体市场格局。

Prices for paid streaming services have ballooned in the last few years.As costs climb, YouTube and other free streamers are capitalizing and gaining TV audience share.These free-to-access alternatives could disrupt streamers, which once disrupted pay TV.

Couch potatoes sick of stream-flation are increasingly tuning into free services like YouTube on their TVs.

Streaming services have gone from a cheap cable alternative to a pricier proposition in recent years, as Wall Street has pushed media companies to prioritize profit over subscriber growth.

Subscribing to the ad-free versions of eight major streaming services in the US now costs nearly $122 per month, up from about $83 in May 2021, according to an analysis by Business Insider.

Apple TV+ and the ad-free version of Disney+ have each doubled in price in that span.

Many streamers have also raised prices on their ad-supported plans. That includes Peacock, which is hiking prices by $3 across both its plans this week, as Vulture first reported.

As streaming prices rise, so has demand for free streamers.

Since Nielsen began publishing streaming ratings in May 2021, YouTube's connected TV viewership share in the US has soared from 5.7% to a market-leading 12.8% in June. No paid streamer is close, as Netflix's share has hovered around 8% for a year, while Disney+ and Hulu are at 4.8% combined.

Free, ad-supported streamers like Tubi and The Roku Channel have also gained. Tubi, Fox's free streamer, put itself on the Nielsen map after its viral Super Bowl ad in February 2023 and has since more than doubled its viewership share to 2.2%. The Roku Channel is growing even faster and came in at 2.5% in June. It overtook Tubi last fall and is also above Paramount+, Peacock, and HBO Max.

These free streamers are far more popular than analyst Naveen Sarma, the media and entertainment director at S&P Global Ratings, would have expected.

Consumers "seem to be willing to put up with ads to not pay whatever pay TV or the streaming subscription costs are," Sarma told BI.

He added that even if ads annoy young people, they may not mind streaming ads if they're scrolling on a second screen anyway.

Free streamers aren't cannibalizing their paid peers — yet

Free streamers began to blossom just as their paid counterparts aggressively hiked prices.

"There's definitely a correlation," Wells Fargo media analyst Steven Cahall told BI.

However, Cahall doesn't see causation, noting that paid streaming's share is more stagnant than sinking. That suggests to him that free services are mainly luring audiences from cable.

Melissa Otto of S&P Global Visible Alpha said that while consumers may be looking to pay less, she doesn't see "YouTube's free service taking share from paid services."

That said, media companies trying to scale their subscription businesses should be wary of free streamers.

Streaming's viewership share surpassed that of broadcast and cable combined for the first time ever in May, according to Nielsen. If audiences fleeing traditional TV are turning to free streamers instead of paying up, it might not be long before paid streamers stop growing.

"This is a problem for the streamers because subscriber growth in the US is slowing," UBS media analyst John Hodulik told BI.

Paid streaming growth in the US has cooled while cancellations have risen, which has led to narrower net subscriber additions, according to subscription data firm Antenna.

"Consumers are certainly signing up for less streaming services, and they're more willing to churn on and off of these streaming services as the content that they want to watch, the season, ends," Sarma said.

In turn, streamers hiked prices and hoped to spark growth with password-sharing crackdowns.

Cahall said some streamers have also cut back on content spending, which means that subscribers are getting a worse deal.

This less-for-more approach may not be sustainable, Sarma said. He said streamers are hitting a wall with price hikes in light of economic uncertainty and the advent of low-cost alternatives.

Streamers should know this cycle well. Streaming services took off a decade ago as pay TV stagnated. Cable companies began to charge each customer more, which led to cancellations, which led to further price hikes that exacerbated the declines — and the vicious cycle continued.

Now, streaming has surpassed traditional TV and is the incumbent, and free streamers are the cheap challenger. What goes around, comes around.