Survey Says: Streaming Battling for Viewer Attention in a Fragmented Media Market
Industry research can provide effective tools for companies to leverage when they go out to their customers and say, “This is something you need to look at.” In some ways, a new Accenture study, “Reinvent for growth, the signals shaping media's next chapter” is no different.
When I reviewed the data in the new Accenture report, one major compelling fact which floated to the top is that the media audiences are choosing for consuming content is changing. The Accenture report defines media as streaming, social, music, sports, traditional broadcast, gaming, and betting. Whereas streaming previously had a strong foothold into consumer’s attention spans, there is strong competition coming from every direction in the M&E umbrella.
The study finds that the industry is at an inflection point, a claim nearly every research study has made over the years. “Last year, we urged media leaders to move beyond incremental improvements and pursue structural reinvention: change that is radical,” the research report states in its opening summary. “That call still stands, but now the urgency is greater. Most major media actions have focused on portfolio reshuffles, ownership swaps, and balance sheet repair, none of which amounts to reinvention."
In the annual survey analyzed in this report, Accenture reached out to 6,000 consumers across 10 countries, as well as 300 senior enterprise executives “spanning every major subsector,” spurred on by industry leaders who “tell us they want to make bold moves but are unsure where to start.” The reporting result “distilled five signals that matter.”
Time Slicing
Accenture U.S. Media & Entertainment Lead John Peters, one of the authors of the report, describes the climate in which the survey was conducted as follows: “The fragmentation of how we’re spending our time for different moods is fascinating. This is the world that we live in now,” he explains. “When we talk about it, we say, ‘I’m a streamer. I can think about getting myself into podcasts or having different types of content.’”
But at the same time, he says, “If I’m a CEO of a media company, I need to think about how to drive growth, and you can see eyeballs are going to other forms of media entirely.” It’s not just a jump to adjacent media either. “They’re not just going from TV to film or film and TV to podcasts,” he says. “They’re going into totally different spaces to fill their time, and I should think about moving myself into the spaces.”
In an interview that revolved largely around sports, Peters cited ESPN as a platform currently facing these challenges.
The Accenture report included a breakdown of consumer viewing patterns tilted “What type of entertainment would you choose in each situation?” Choices included “Have background noise,” “Be a part of the Cultural Conversation,” “De-stress and relax,” “Learn about something new,” “Have fun,” “Be social,” and the like.
Preferred entertainment services. Source: Accenture “Reinvent for Growth” survey report.
The table compared data from 2022, 2023, and 2025. SVOD popped up as the main activity in 2022 for every category except “have background noise.” In 2025, SVOD led the way in three categories: “de-stress and relax,” “escape,” and “feel inspired.” Survey respondents’ preferred choices in the remaining categories included a mix of social media, online gambling, video gaming, social video, and AI chatbot.
The fragmentation revealed in the latest data, according to the Accenture report, “is expanding the playing field for media companies, multiplying growth pathways. While many media executives believe fragmentation has been more advantageous for diversified platform companies than for traditional players, even legacy media players have opportunities to seize the moment and flow to adjacent value pools.”
“Social media is very prominent for consumption, and the media companies are not necessarily innovating the way they should,” Peters says. “The economics and the competitive environment have changed so significantly for traditional media companies that it wasn’t enough to sort of tinker around the edges of your business. You truly had to reinvent. And we didn’t think just any old reinvention was going to do it. You had to really get radical. You had to think about entering different markets, serving different clients, rethinking how you actually do work.”
In describing the latest report’s methodology, Peters says that Accenture asked the 300 executives targeted in this survey, “‘Are the next five years going to be more or less disruptive than the last five?’ And 75 percent of them still believe the next five years are going to be quite disruptive. But that’s a lower number than the way they thought about the past. Our fear is that some executives might actually take their foot off the gas at this really vital moment of change. We like to say change has never been as slow as it is now,” he says.
One company that Peters says he has been “watching with curiosity” is Versant. “They’re increasingly pivoting themselves into digital products and placing investments, capital, attention and talent into emerging spaces. and they are moving towards a more direct-to-consumer model,” he reports. “I love that they are outside of their traditional spaces. They are pouring money into moving towards platform-based businesses and digital products, and they have lined up a really strong talent base to move in that direction.”
Flattery is the Sincerest Form of Imitation
Peters mentions YouTube as a platform now enjoying incredible success with longform content. “That doesn’t mean they’re going to go into producing it and financing it themselves,” he notes. But if you looked at their upfronts, they were talking more about those types of content. Why? Because premier advertising dollars and brand-based advertising continue to flow to the streamers. So if you’re a social media company, you’re flexing your success to move into the spaces that traditional legacy media companies have had.”
Many companies, he goes on to say, are talking about introducing social features into their platforms. “If you and I were both watching Paramount+ and I was loving Landman, I couldn’t tell you anything about it. I’d have to go out to Instagram and connect with you. I’d have to go out to X, I'd have to go out to different platforms for you and me and a community of people to really vibe on Landman."
Adopting AI
The Accenture survey reported that more than 90% of media executives expect AI to be one of the most disruptive drivers of change over the next two years. Meanwhile 72% say they are using AI in content production and postproduction and are leveraging AI for pilots in advertising, content strategy, marketing, and subscriber acquisition.
The research also shows that 74% of diversified tech platform companies (e.g., YouTube, Amazon, and Apple) have stated that becoming an “AI-ready company” is a top transformation priority. By contrast, 16% of traditional media companies report prioritizing the same goal.
“Only 16% of legacy companies taking that same progressive view worries me,” Peters says. “It’s one thing you can see that the Amazons and the Googles of the world are incredible companies. They're also deep-pocketed, and so they’ve got power combined with a more progressive view of what this means to be a company competing in this space," he says.
Vision of building an AI-ready enterprise vs. readiness. Source: Accenture “Reinvent for Growth” survey report
In a survey category called “Tech optimism is outpacing tech readiness,” research shows that 60% of media executives believe they are ahead of peers in AI adoption. One media CTO I heard speak at a recent event said his idea was to listen to employees doing the work in their organizations using AI, find selective tools which fit in company security requirements, and look at the data to see what resonates. This strikes me as a very mature way of running a company: asking your employees what they can improve.
Asking a consulting company what to improve instead of your employees will probably cost a lot more and may not get you any further ahead. The fact that CEOs of media companies would rather have consultants tell them what they want to hear strikes me as one of the reasons why the media industry is fragmenting in the first place.
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