The Return of the Free! How economic pressure is redrawing the free tv landscape
Article summary:
Cost-of-living pressures are accelerating the shift toward free, ad-supported television and BVOD.
Streaming platforms are increasingly adopting the advertising and content strategies long used by broadcasters.
New audience data suggests BVOD is becoming an essential channel for modern media planning across Australia and New Zealand.
The streaming industry sold the world a vision. Pay a monthly fee, watch whatever you want, and when you want with no ads. Plenty signed up but then reality struck. Bills started arriving for the platforms, the cost of living intensified, and something happened… People looked to free tv again.
Here are the numbers:
6 in 10 Australians now prefer ad-supported streaming over subscription-only services (PwC, 2026)
10.8% BVOD share of AU connected TV viewing in Q1 2026[LP1] — edging ahead of Netflix at 10.7% (OzTam Streamscape via TVmap VOZ Analyser)
41% of consumers say SVOD content is no longer worth the price, up 5 pts year-on-year (Deloitte, 2025)
The Subscription Ceiling
The average Australian SVOD household was carrying 3.3 active services and spending nearly AU$42 a month on streaming by mid-2025 (Telsyte, 2025). In the US, households cut their active paid subscriptions from 4.1 to just 2.8 in a single year — a 32% drop (Self Financial, 2025). The subscription purge had arrived.
Deloitte's 2025 Digital Media Trends Survey found that 41% of consumers said streaming content was no longer worth the price, up five points on 2024. Kantar found Netflix's ad-free subscriber satisfaction had fallen to just 15 net satisfaction points. Churn was rising and the model that promised premium convenience had been repriced into something that required justification.
In New Zealand and Australia, cost-of-living pressure amplified the effect. Food prices in New Zealand rose 4.5% in the twelve months to February 2026 (Stats NZ). Electricity costs climbed 12.2%. PwC research found 74% of Australian 18-to-64-year-olds now rank value for money as their top entertainment priority, and more than half cancelled at least one subscription in the previous year.
Streaming Platforms are Copying Broadcast
Something has been happening slowly. Major subscription platforms have been rebuilding features that broadcast television has never abandoned. Netflix shifted from series drops to weekly episode releases on set days. Amazon introduced ads to in New Zealand. Disney+ followed in Australia. Live sport and trusted news, historically broadcast's clearest competitive advantages, are now stated priorities for every major streamer.
“When ads come back in, we’re all the same again and people won’t want to pay as much.” - Senior SVOD executive, as cited by Gereurd Roberts, Seven West Media (Mumbrella, 2026)
As Roberts observed, BVOD platforms already have the infrastructure, the content libraries, the audience scale, and the advertiser relationships. They never needed to persuade anyone to pay for anything.
Where the Audiences Are
OzTam's Streamscape data for Q1 2026 put BVOD at 10.8% of Australian connected TV viewing, ahead of Netflix (10.7%), YouTube (10.4%), Disney+ (2.8%), and Prime Video (2.4%). Broadcast TV overall held 51.8%. In New Zealand, TVNZ+ reached 2.17 million weekly viewers engaging with 205 million minutes of content per week (TVNZ, 2025). Nielsen/ThinkTV data shows NZ BVOD viewership among 18-to-24-year-olds grew 25.7% year-on-year.
For advertisers, the performance metrics are strong. Average ad completion rates on BVOD platforms exceeded 92% in 2026, compared to 68% on open web video (Vodlix, 2026). Over 60% of BVOD inventory in Australia is now transacted programmatically and Hub Research found that 66% of viewers consider ads during live-streamed events more acceptable than ads in on-demand content.
Comscore's 2025 State of Streaming report recorded a 43% year-on-year increase in total hours watched across free ad-supported streaming services. IAB Australia's 2026 agency survey found 56% of buyers plan to increase BVOD investment this year.
What This Means for Planning
Viewers who choose a free, ad-supported platform are not settling. Choosing free is a rational preference these days because the audience in front of your client's advertisement made an active choice to be there.
The infrastructure for accountable BVOD planning[LP5] is mature and improving like our TVmap solutions from analytics, planning, tracking, and post; as well as Infinitum that measures direct action following CTV’s served impression.
IAB Australia's Future of Measurement project is developing unified standards across BVOD, social video, and AVOD, therefore, the planning conversation needs to reflect what the audience data already shows.
We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: television is not dead.
References
Comscore. (2025, October 29). 2025 State of Streaming report. https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2025/10/Comscores-2025-State-of-Streaming-Report
Deloitte. (2025). 2025 Digital Media Trends Survey. https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/digital-media-trends-consumption-habits-survey/2025.html
Hub Entertainment Research. (2025/2026). TV Advertising: Fact vs Fiction.
IAB Australia & PwC. (2026, March 10). CY2025 Internet Advertising Revenue Report.
IAB Australia. (2026, May 6). Video Advertising State of the Nation 2026 (Wave 6).
Kantar. (2025). Entertainment on Demand Q3 2025. https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/technology/premium-sign-ups-stall-while-ad-supported-streaming-explodes-as-aussies-chase-value-in-australia
NZ On Air. (2024). Where Are the Audiences? 2024. https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/research/where-are-the-audiences-2024/
OzTam. (2026). Streamscape Q1 2026.
Roberts, G. (2026, May 7). Re-convergence: Why streamers are copying free-to-air. Mumbrella. https://mumbrella.com.au/re-convergence-why-streamers-are-copying-free-to-air-922550
Self Financial. (2025, June). 2025 Subscription habits survey. https://studyfinds.org/subscription-boom-bursting-streaming-food-delivey-americans-purge/
Telsyte. (2025, October 8). Australian Subscription Entertainment Study 2025. https://www.telsyte.com.au/announcements/2025/10/8/australians-double-down-on-subscription-video
ThinkTV New Zealand. (n.d.). The rise and rise of BVOD in New Zealand. https://www.thinktv.nz/why-tv/the-rise-and-rise-of-bvod-in-new-zealand
The Treasury New Zealand. (2025, December 17). Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2025. https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/efu/half-year-economic-and-fiscal-update-2025
TVNZ. (2025). TVNZ+ 2025’s biggest streaming hits. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU2507/S00006/tvnz-unveils-2025s-biggest-streaming-hits.htm
Vodlix. (2026, March 19). What is BVOD? Benefits of Broadcaster VOD Advertising in 2026. https://vodlix.com/blog/what-is-bvod-broadcaster-video-on-demand
Unlike visual media, radio relies entirely on auditory processing. This increases sensitivity to voice, clarity, and repetition, while reducing tolerance for complexity (Krugman, 1988; Lang, 2000). Messages that are simple, familiar, and clearly branded are more likely to be encoded and recalled.
This is why execution matters more on radio than on screen.
Why Live Reads Perform Differently
Live reads sit within trusted programming rather than interrupting it. Research on source credibility consistently shows that messages delivered by familiar or trusted communicators are processed more fluently and perceived as more persuasive (Hovland & Weiss, 1951; Belch & Belch, 2021).
On radio, this translates into:
Higher perceived authenticity
Reduced resistance
Stronger message acceptance
Conversational delivery aligns with how listeners consume audio, particularly in low-attention settings such as commuting.
Simplicity and Frequency Drive Effectiveness
Radio effectiveness is cumulative. Studies show that frequency is a stronger predictor of recall than creative novelty, especially in audio environments (Binet & Field, 2013; Ebiquity & Essence, 2017).
Live reads benefit from consistent voices and natural delivery, allowing repetition to build familiarity rather than fatigue. Produced ads can achieve the same outcome, but only when they adhere to the same principles of simplicity and clarity.
Accountability Completes the Loop
Even well-executed ads fail without delivery certainty. Industry bodies such as the World Federation of Advertisers identify independent verification as essential for credible measurement and optimisation (WFA, 2023).
Effectiveness requires not just strong creative, but confirmation that ads aired as intended. Radio, therefore, does not have an effectiveness problem but has an execution problem.
Live reads work not because they are new, but because they align with how audio is processed, trusted, and remembered. When execution is clear and delivery is verified, radio performs exactly as the evidence suggests.
References:
Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A. (2021). Advertising and Promotion (12th ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Binet, L., & Field, P. (2013). The Long and the Short of It. Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/knowledge-hub/the-long-and-the-short-of-it
Ebiquity & Essence. (2017). Re-evaluating media frequency. https://www.ebiquity.com/insights/re-evaluating-media-frequency
Hovland, C. I., & Weiss, W. (1951). Source credibility and communication effectiveness. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15(4), 635–650. https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/15/4/635/1860395
Krugman, H. E. (1988). Limits of attention to advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 28(5), 47–54.
Lang, A. (2000). Limited capacity model of mediated message processing. Journal of Communication, 50(1), 46–70. https://academic.oup.com/joc/article/50/1/46/4116781
World Federation of Advertisers. (2023). Media accountability and measurement principles. https://wfanet.org/knowledge/item/2023/06/Media-Accountability-Principles