Movie studios could once find large audiences during Prime Time on three broadcast channels or during major live sporting events. But television viewership has splintered as consumers cut the cord and bounce from app to app, and live sports is split between linear broadcasts and streaming options. With so many entertainment choices competing for viewers’ attention, movie studios need significant reach and attention to break through.
Here’s where a platform like Roku can help. In Q1 2024, ads on the Roku platform reached, on a daily basis, U.S. households with nearly 120 million people. They are seeking out entertainment in many forms — and they love to go to the movies.
To better understand the moviegoing habits of streamers and Roku users, we partnered with NRG, the pioneer in Hollywood research, to survey 2,200 streamers about their moviegoing habits and influences.¹ Our key finding? Streaming has moviegoing scale. As the lead-in to all TV and the nation’s #1 TV streaming platform,² Roku has the reliable reach to help studios find these cinephiles at a time when television viewing has never been so fragmented.
Let’s dive into the numbers.
Streamers are moviegoers, too
Our research found that 74% of streaming viewers went to the movies at least once in the last 6 months.³
Roku can put studios in front of these moviegoing streamers. More than half of moviegoing streamers⁴ have a Roku TV, 2.5 times greater than those with a Fire TV and nearly 1.5 times those with a Samsung TV. And Roku is a habit: Among those who have a Roku TV, 6 in 10 use it daily.⁵
Roku has valuable moviegoing audiences
Roku users are regular moviegoers⁶ who average about eight movies in the theater every year. Our movie-loving audiences consists of segments that help drive box-office success.⁷
Young: 45% are 18-34
Diverse: 37% are multicultural
Families: 42% are parents
With twice the usage of America’s next largest TV operating system,⁸ Roku has an enormous data footprint with extensive viewership, demographic, and search signals to help studios find the influential young, multicultural and family audiences who are likely to be interested in their films.
Case in point: To promote an action film, a studio used a combination of Roku’s search data for competitive titles, viewership signals to target action genre viewers and demographic data to target multicultural audiences. The campaign drove a significant lift in awareness and theater visits overall and influenced less frequent moviegoers to see the film in the theater.⁹
Breaking through to moviegoers on Roku
Roku moviegoers spend nearly one-third of their weekly entertainment time streaming TV and movies — almost 2x more than browsing and posting on social media, according to our survey findings.¹⁰ With so much time spent streaming, studios can use CTV to complement their social campaigns. Roku provides a creative canvas for studios to reach moviegoing streamers throughout their journey on Roku.
At power on, Roku’s Animated Marquee on the home screen offers a significant opportunity to capture users’ attention. With one click, users can watch your film’s trailer on the biggest screen in the home. No other screen can capture Roku moviegoers’ attention quite like it. 72% of Roku moviegoers pay more attention to trailers on their TV than on their phone.¹¹
As moviegoers stream their favorite movie and TV shows, video ads are particularly effective in influencing moviegoing decisions. Our research on moviegoers has shown that ads with video are 1.7 times more likely to make Roku moviegoers purchase a movie ticket vs. static ads.¹²
Delight and surprise moviegoing streamers by bringing your film universe into Roku City. Organically integrate your film into the cityscape screensaver that scrolls through living rooms and captivates millions of streamers.
In fact, Roku City integrations have reached an average of more than 40 million Streaming Households.¹³ 2X more people than the average weekly reach of primetime slots across the top 4 networks.
Theatrical campaigns on Roku drive results
With 8 in 10 theatrical campaigns on Roku increasing intent to watch a film or theater visits,¹⁴ Roku has the reach and experiences that can drive audiences to the movies.
As our research shows, streaming has moviegoing scale. Valuable moviegoing audiences can be found on the Roku platform, and Roku’s creative canvas can help studios break through to moviegoers.
It’s all on Roku. Movie studios should be here too.
Contact us or reach out to your sales rep to learn more.
¹ Survey Methodology: Online survey of 2,200 US Adults 18-64. To qualify for the survey, respondents had to stream at least 1+ hour of content per week, uses SVOD/AVOD/FAST to watch shows/movies, and must watch TV/movies weekly on a video streaming service. Users were asked about their device usage, streaming/moviegoing habits, drivers and barriers to going to the theater, and attitudes towards ads.
² By hours streamed (Hypothesis Group: Dec 2023)
³ NRG + Roku Theatrical Survey, January 2024
⁴ Moviegoing streamer = Streamed weekly and watched at least 1 movie in the theater in the last year.
⁵ NRG + Roku Theatrical Survey, January 2024
⁶ Roku moviegoer = Have used a Roku at least less than once a month and have gone to the movies in at least 1X in the last 12 months.
⁷ NRG + Roku Theatrical Survey, January 2024
⁸ Comscore, September 2023; By US hours streamed
⁹ Roku Internal Data, March 2024
¹⁰⁻¹² NRG+Roku Theatrical Survey, January 2024
¹³ Roku Internal Data, January to May 2024
¹⁴ Roku Internal Data, June 2023 to May 2024
