Ignore that guy you were chatting to at that BBQ on the weekend who boldly claimed that people are pirating TV and movies again now because the cost of subscribing to all those streaming services is too expensive. The numbers suggest a very different reality.
Australians are not only paying more for their streaming services, but they are also subscribing to even more of them.
This has to be good news for Apple, which is reportedly set to raise streaming prices later this week to $15.99 per month. That puts it at the same price per month as standard plans for HBO Max and Disney+.
Each year analyst firm Telsyte releases its Subscription Entertainment Study. It is an annual report that goes deep into which services Australians are paying for and how much they are paying. The firm has been doing it for a number of years now, providing great trending data about Australia’s investment in streaming video.
In the 2025 report, which Telsyte is yet to publicly make available online, but has been reported on by the AFR, the firm reports that in the past 12 months the average budget for video streaming has jumped a whopping 18 per cent to $42 a month.
While some will look at that figure and just attribute it to the price increases we have all noticed being made by all of the streaming services we use, that figure is actually higher than the 13 per cent hike passed on to customers by the top 10 streaming services.
The big winner in the local market appears to have been Paramount+, which saw a massive 21% increase in subscribers over the past year. Increases in single digits were recorded across the board, with Netflix and Prime Video leading the market.
In the past year, Australia has seen substantial changes in the local industry, with the launch of HBO Max in March of this year, the introduction of ad-supported tiers on several leading platforms, and substantial discounting from some services.
Amid that upheaval, we are spending more.
As per Telsyte, Australians now spend $3.8 billion per year. That is up 9 per cent. We have 26.6 million video streaming accounts in total, up 5 per cent. And per home, on average we have 3.3 active paid accounts at any one time.
Telsyte does report that 46 per cent of streaming users are rotating between services to keep costs down. And around half of Australian streamers are actively seeking discounted deals and subscribing for specific content, cancelling once it has been watched.
What we aren’t doing is pirating.
This isn’t Australia-specific data, but considering global trends, it is likely that Australian behaviour is similar. When data company MUSO released its 2024 Piracy Trends and Insights report, it found that there was a decline in piracy from 2023-2024. This has been a trend for several years now. The only category globally that have seen increases has been anime.
TV piracy has decreased 6.8% year-on-year, while film piracy has dropped 18% year-on-year.