Viewers are increasingly signing up to streaming services with advertising, Kantar research shows

Viewers are increasingly prepared to sit through commercials in return for a cheaper monthly deal on streaming costs.

Lily Collins plays Emily in the hit Netflix series Emily in Paris. Picture: Netflix

Streaming companies have experienced a surge in consumers signing up to monthly subscriptions that include advertising, new figures show.

Prime Video introduced advertising into its streaming services in July, prompting an almost immediate spike in demand.

New quarterly figures released by data and insight firm Kantar, which will be released globally this week, showed the percentage of total Australian households with advertising video on demand (AVOD) services climbed to 24 per cent in the September quarter.

This is up from 10 per cent in the same quarter last year.

Kantar’s consumer director Andrew Northedge said many streaming companies were boosting their advertising sales teams to help with the increased number of ads included in streaming plans.

“The pricing is so skewed towards people taking out a basic service with an ad plan,” he said.

“Depending on what budget you are on, if it’s just a couple of dollars more to have a service without ads, people do often sign up to the premium tier.

“The likes of Binge and Netflix are nearly twice the price to go from ad-supported to ad-free.

“Prime Video pushes everyone onto the ad tier which includes short 15-second ads at the start of content, it’s $3 extra a month (to go ad free) but you have to opt in.”

The report’s findings are based on a longitudinal study including 10,000 streaming customers and also a quarterly boost sample of 2500 new subscribers.

Mr Northedge said he expected ad streaming services to eventually become “the lion’s share of subscriptions” which would help increase revenue for streaming companies.

Amazon’s vice president of advertising Kelly Day said the company planned to increase the number of ads on Prime Video services in 2025.

Netflix’s standard deal inclusive of ads costs $7.99 per month and then the next tier – the standard deal – is ad-free and costs $18.99 per month.

Binge, which is owned by Foxtel, starts streaming plans from $10 per month inclusive of ads, and the next plan on offer is $18 per month ad-free. Foxtel is 65 per cent owned by News Corp (publisher of The Australian).

The Kantar report also revealed the most popular program during the past quarter was the hit Netflix series Emily in Paris.