After nearly a decade of redefining the way consumers experience TV, the streaming landscape continues to evolve, changing the way Entertainment marketers promote content. New scripted series dropped by 26% year-over-year in 2023 and the first half of 2024 saw a nearly 20% decrease versus the prior year in original TV seasons released by the eight largest SVODs.¹ This decline in new content can make it harder for services to acquire and retain subscribers especially as serial churners now comprise 23% of streaming subscribers.²
Although the landscape has changed, this shift creates exciting opportunities for marketers to pivot and implement innovative strategies. By bringing desired content, such as live sports and existing IPs, to the forefront, services can continue to successfully grow and engage their customer base.
As the lead-in for all TV, Roku is dedicated to understanding the streamer journey. Below, we offer guidance for entertainment advertisers seeking to navigate this changing landscape.
Acquire with sports, engage post-game.
Almost three-quarters of Roku streamers follow sports,³ a highly engaged audience that’s immune to the ups and downs of scripted entertainment. In 2024, Roku sports fans spent 23% more hours streaming than the Roku average.⁴
Although sports streaming has grown in popularity, there is still significant opportunity for streaming services to educate audiences about their sports offering. Less than one quarter of surveyed Roku users closely associated the major streaming services with Live Sports.⁵
While TV fragmentation has made it hard for fans to find everything they want, Roku’s Sports Zone helps them discover their favorite teams and games all in one place. Streaming services can capitalize on fan interest and grow brand association through native ads within sports-specific zones (i.e. soccer, basketball), driving viewership to their services throughout the sports season and during tentpole games.
This summer, Roku is bringing viewers access to the biggest sporting event around: the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Through the NBC Olympic Zone, a new feature accessible on the Roku Home Screen, fans will be able to access the most comprehensive Olympics streaming destination ever, including more than 5,000 hours of live events alongside replays and highlight reels.
In a recent survey, nearly half of Roku users said they would subscribe to a streaming service that gave them access to their favorite sports.⁶ Combining live sports with your existing content library creates a powerful platform that can drive growth even when originals slow down. One-third of Roku users went on to stream a title within one hour of watching one of the four tentpole sporting events on linear TV in 2024.⁷ 
This means that the sports streamer’s journey doesn’t end with the event. Roku can be the lead-in to their next great watch, helping them discover the best TV shows and movies from your content portfolio to grow engagement.
Celebrate comfort classics
Many streamers built their subscriber bases by delivering continuous new programming. But, in a season of fewer originals, services can still attract and engage streamers by re-introducing the breadth of their classic content, especially popular TV shows and movies.
Viewers are turning to comfort classics and binge-ready titles they didn’t get a chance to see the first time around.
In fact, 84% of series searches on Roku are for back-catalog favorites like Friends, The Office, and The Big Bang Theory.⁸
What’s more? The top 10 streaming series in Nielsen’s year-end rankings for 2023 were all acquired shows, many of which had originally aired on linear networks.⁹
Entertainment marketers can leverage Roku’s Home Screen to captivate millions of streaming households with high-impact ads promoting beloved IP and characters. While the content may not be new, there's a significant opportunity to create a major moment on Roku, attracting incremental audiences to your service. For instance, a streaming service advertised popular films from years ago by taking over the Roku Home Screen, and nearly half of the signups attributed to media were incremental.¹⁰
Marketers can also use Roku search insights to identify top-performing titles and lean into cultural holidays and content anniversaries to bring these fan-favorite titles to viewers’ attention. For instance, Paramount+ celebrated the 25th anniversary of SpongeBob SquarePants, a top 3 searched title for the service on Roku in 1H 2024, with placements in Roku City and on the Home Screen to direct curious viewers to current and all-new episodes of the show on everyone’s mind.¹¹
“[SpongeBob is] an amazing franchise with a really devoted and passionate fandom,” said Dominic DiMeglio, head of marketing and data for Paramount Streaming.¹²
Make new titles unmissable
While the decline in scripted originals means less new content for viewers, this comes with some good news for streaming services. Where marketing resources were once spread across dozens of premieres, marketers can now focus on promoting the titles that matter most through more impactful campaigns. On Roku, that includes going big on the Home Screen, where streamers are 2.8 times more likely to discover content than via word of mouth.¹³
With this insight in mind, Max recently brought Westeros to Roku to launch season two of the HBO Original Series “House of the Dragon.” The partnership transformed the Roku Home Screen with key imagery from the new season, making it unmissable for Roku users. A dragon from House Targaryen could also be seen keeping watch over a castle in Roku City, an exhilarating spectacle for the nearly 40 million Roku households who watch Roku City during streaming breaks each month.¹⁴
As the streaming landscape continues to evolve, it provides exciting new opportunities for advertisers to rethink their strategies. Aligning with sports and celebrating the breadth and depth of your catalog are just a few important ways you can continue to grab attention. Coupling Roku’s audience and platform insights with the creative canvas of the lead-in for all TV can unlock even more ways to surprise and delight viewers throughout their streaming journey while maximizing your success in a changing landscape.
Contact Roku Advertising or reach out to your sales rep to learn more.
² Antenna State of Subscriptions, Feb 2024
³ Magna/Roku From ‘Power On’ to ‘Power Off’; Roku Internal Data,2023
⁴ Roku Sports Audience Data, 2024 | Includes viewing data for all the relevant channels carried by vMVPDs during time of gameplay. This includes programming other than sports games.
⁵ Roku Survey Data, 2024
⁶ Roku Survey Data, January 2024
⁷ Roku Internal Data, 2023
⁸ Roku Internal Data, 2023
⁹ Nielsen
¹⁰ Roku Internal Data, 2023-24
¹³ Roku Internal Data, 2024
¹⁴ Roku Internal Data, 2023
