How Streaming Companies Can Win the Return Visit
For streaming providers and media companies competing for streaming audiences, the fight for attention no longer starts and ends inside the app. Viewers still want great shows and movies, but they now move quickly among video, gaming, music, social platforms, and live experiences.
On a typical weekend day, someone might watch a favorite show, queue up a movie for the kids, watch short-form clips connected to something they’re already following, then move into a game, playlist, or fan discussion. They aren’t thinking in media categories. They’re choosing whatever fits their context and mood.
“59% of U.S. consumers prefer to do several media or technology activities at the same time, such as watching TV, using the internet, or texting on a phone, rather than focusing on one activity at a time,” according to Gartner.[1]
Accenture’s latest media industry research, Reinvent for Growth: The Signals Shaping Media’s Next Chapter, examines how fragmented consumer engagement is changing the way media companies think about growth. For streaming businesses, the message is clear: winning a subscription or a single viewing session is only the beginning. The harder challenge is earning the next visit.
Follow where streaming audiences go next
Streaming companies built scale by bringing premium content into direct-to-consumer platforms and monetizing that reach through subscriptions, advertising, or both. That model still matters, but it’s no longer enough on its own.
The competition now includes more than rival streaming services. Social video, gaming, online betting, music and live experiences all compete for the same consumer time, often during the same part of the day.
Streaming companies need to study behavior across moments, not just performance inside a single app. That means asking what people do before and after they watch, where they discover new content and what prompts them to return. A series may start on a streaming service, continue through creator clips or social conversation, and deepen through gaming, merchandise, live events, or fan communities. The opportunity is to understand those patterns and build experiences that feel connected without forcing consumers into a fixed path.
Earn the return visit
Content remains the reason many people sign up for a streaming service. It is not always the reason they come back. Return visits depend on experiences that feel relevant, easy to use and worth fitting into a consumer’s routine.
Three areas are becoming especially important for businesses: authenticity, bundling and community.
- Authenticity helps viewers trust that a service, brand or creator will keep delivering value.
- Bundling can reduce friction when customers are managing too many subscriptions and services.
- Community gives people a reason to stay engaged between releases, not just when a new episode or season drops.
Streaming businesses can put those forces to work by starting with audience behavior, then building the experience around it. People may move across platforms, but they spend more time with brands that feel useful and credible. That often means moving beyond a single product or subscription toward experiences that fit naturally into consumers’ routines.
Authenticity gives audiences a reason to trust a brand or creator in a crowded media environment. That trust comes from consistent value across channels.
Effective bundles reduce the number of decisions consumers have to make and give them a clearer reason to keep returning.
Community makes engagement less dependent on one release cycle. When audiences can interact with creators or other fans, participation becomes part of the value.
Give AI something to work with
Fragmented consumer behavior shines an unflattering light on fragmented organizations and value chains. As audiences move across platforms and formats, streaming companies need to go in the opposite direction. They must address data that sits in silos, broken workflows, and systems built for linear distribution models.
Operational gaps make it harder to respond to fast-moving audience demand. They also limit the impact of AI and automation when capabilities aren’t connected across the business.
AI can improve how content is created, discovered and monetized. But the larger opportunity is revenue growth. The biggest gains can come from producing more of the right content, improving audience targeting, strengthening conversion, monetization, and retention. Those revenue effects can outweigh efficiency gains alone, which means companies that treat AI mainly as a cost-cutting tool risk underestimating its commercial impact.
The work starts with integration. Streaming companies need data, workflows, and AI capabilities to work across the business so teams can test ideas faster, respond to changing audience behavior with less friction and turn AI into a source of value creation, not just operational savings.
Build for repeat choice
Fragmentation now runs through the business, shaping how audiences spend time and how companies compete for growth.
That makes incremental change risky. The industry is shifting from static formats to more fluid ecosystems, where value goes to companies that can keep adapting as audience behavior changes. Efficiency still matters, but growth will depend on experiences and business models built to evolve.
The first step is to connect the work: follow how people spend their time, make access easier and strengthen the technology foundation so the business can respond faster.
Those moves matter because growth is becoming more tied to repeat choice, rather than passive reach. Streaming leaders should use this moment to look again at where audience behavior is moving, where their business gets slowed down and where AI can create new sources of value. Companies that do that work now will be better positioned to build experiences people choose again.
[Editor's note: This is a contributed article from Accenture. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]
[1] Gartner Press Release, Survey Finds 49% of U.S. Consumers Say GenAI Has Made Content Quality Worse. June 9, 2026, https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-06-09-gartner-survey-finds-49-of-u-s-consumers-say-genai-has-made-content-quality-worse
GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.
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