Apr 23, 2025
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Article
Market Trends & Growth
The streaming landscape in the United States has undergone a significant transformation. Fabric's latest analysis with BB Media's data highlights key trends, from the dominance of major streaming services to the audience profiles across these platforms.
Market Stability & Leading Platforms
The U.S. streaming market has reached a phase of stability, with Netflix leading at 68% penetration, followed by Prime Video (54%), Hulu (42%), and Disney+ (38%). Peacock and Paramount+ tie for fifth place at 30%, with Max trailing closely at 25%. These figures include households that access the platforms through third-party accounts (account sharing).
This steady performance among the giants suggests that these platforms have retained core audiences, ensuring steady penetration rates. It also indicates that consumer preferences are solidifying, which reinforces the dominance of top-tier services.
Audience Profiles Across Major Platforms
The elephant in the room is—how can the platforms differentiate from the others and stand as unique? One way to do it is by targeting the right audience, knowing what users prefer and developing an accurate content curation strategy. Fabric’s analysis indicates that there are distinct demographics profiles.
Netflix stands out for its balanced appeal, attracting users from a wide age range, from teenagers aged 16 to individuals over 55, with no strong gender bias. Original content is the most valued attribute among streaming services users. Netflix has successfully capitalized on this demand, with 62% of its catalog consisting of Netflix Originals, the highest among major platforms. Additionally, Netflix users appreciate its intuitive navigation and extensive TV series library.
Disney+ and Paramount+ also have a balanced gender distribution. However, they see a higher concentration of viewers within the 25-44 age range. Users of these platforms value user experience and ease of navigation, making intuitive content discovery a critical success factor. Additionally, Disney+ users specifically highlight their appreciation for the platform’s movie catalog while Paramount+ users value its series offerings. Live content is also important to these audiences, with 65% of Paramount+ users and 50% of Disney+ users expressing interest.
This preference may be influenced by the variety of live content available: Paramount+ offers more than 40 live channels, while Disney+ provides only 2. Notably, 93% of Paramount+’s live channels are proprietary, whereas both of Disney+’s live channels are also owned by the platform. Paramount+ primarily distributes news content (38%) through its live channels, while Disney+ offers one news channel and one dedicated to children’s programming.
Prime Video distinguishes itself by resonating more with an older audience, particularly those aged over 55. While only 1% of its catalog consists of original titles, these remain one of the platform’s most valued attributes. This may be due to the strong presence of Prime Video Originals among the most popular movies: 4 of the 10 most popular films in the last months belong to this category, including Culpa Mía (2023), The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024), Saltburn (2023) and The Idea of You (2024). Another highly appreciated aspect of the platform is its vast selection of movies and series, making it one of the services with the most extensive content libraries, offering over 43K subscription titles.
In contrast, Hulu and Peacock have a predominantly female audience, with most viewers also falling into the 25-44 age range. Users of both platforms, along with Netflix and Paramount+, prioritize the availability of strong TV series offerings. Additionally, live content is highly valued by Hulu and Peacock subscribers, with 60% and 70% respectively expressing a preference for it. Their primary live content consists of series and movies.
Evolving Content Preferences & Genre Trends
Beyond demographic segmentation, audience behavior is shifting in different ways. Interest in K-dramas has increased by 38% from 2022 to 2024, appealing to both men and women, particularly the 35-44 age group. Notably, Solo Leveling (2024) is the most popular K-drama title in the USA during the first quarter of 2025.
Genre preferences are also shifting, with women showing a 26% increase in preference for animation and a 25% rise in interest in romance, showing strong engagement opportunities in these categories. Meanwhile, men have exhibited a 32% rise in interest in telenovelas, a genre that remains particularly strong in Latin America but is now gaining traction in the United States.
Additionally, animation has grown in popularity across different age groups, particularly among viewers aged 55 and older, whose preference for the genre has risen from 4% to 10%. Over the past year, the platforms that have added the most animation titles to their catalogs include Crunchyroll (+200), Prime Video (+80) and Netflix (+60), reflecting the growing demand for this content.
Streaming Platforms Expand Into Live Content
On-demand content remains dominant in the U.S., with 66% of households who watch online content favoring movies and 64% preferring series. However, live streaming is emerging as a key differentiator in an increasingly competitive market. Fabric’s data shows that 28% of USA’s viewers are drawn to live sports, 24% to news and 19% to live channels.
Among platforms offering live streaming, 60% are niche services, primarily focused on sports, news and religious content. The Roku Channel, Plex and Sling TV lead in providing the most live streaming options in the USA, emphasizing the demand for real-time content.
The shift toward live content also extends to FAST Channels. Platforms are integrating live, linear channels to retain users and enhance ad revenue. Disney+ has introduced “Streams” in the U.S., adding live channels like:
ABC News, a 24/7 live news coverage
Disney Playtime, dedicated to children’s programming, such as Jake and the Never Land Pirates or Doc McStuffins.
The Simpsons Channel, which streams all 767 episodes in chronological order.
In addition, Netflix's expansion into live sports marks a major shift in the industry. In late 2024, the platform streamed the globally anticipated boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, signaling its entry into sports broadcasting. This move was further reinforced by a three-year deal with the NFL, ensuring exclusive Christmas Day game broadcasts. Moreover, Netflix secured a 10-year agreement with WWE to stream RAW and SmackDown, starting January 10th, 2025, initially covering the Americas and Spain.
The U.S. streaming market is evolving as platforms refine their content strategies and user experiences to maintain engagement. Original content remains a key driver of satisfaction, with Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video leading in this area. Meanwhile, user experience plays a crucial role, with ease of navigation and content recommendations ranking highly across platforms. As competition intensifies, leveraging strong personalization, intuitive discovery tools, and strategic content investments will be essential for platforms to differentiate and sustain long-term subscriber loyalty. As platforms refine their strategies, the key question remains: how will they continue to adapt to an increasingly competitive and fragmented landscape?
About the services
Platform Essentials tracks news, updates, launches, discontinuations, and other changes related to entertainment platforms. Data collection and analysis leverage a combination of automated scraping techniques and manual validation by our analyst team. Information is updated on a weekly basis, which is why the dataset cited corresponds to the first quarter of 2025.
Online Media Essentials processes data on a quarterly basis. Data is collected via online panels, with the unit of measurement being total households and individuals aged 16 years and older residing in the country. Regarding the USA, over 6K households are analyzed by year. As the reporting follows a quarterly cadence, data is from 4Q24.
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