The Audience in the Competition Between Cinemas and Streaming Services: A Quantitative Study Within the Framework of the Technology Acceptance Model

The rising dominance of digital technologies has transformed established practices in the social sphere, and the cinema and broadcasting industries have also been affected by this shift. Cinema halls have lost their former popularity, and younger generations have rapidly turned to streaming services for viewing content. This transformation has prompted renewed discussions about innovations in both conventional audience culture and entertainment consumption. This study was conducted using a quantitative research design to identify the motivations behind users’ preferences for streaming services, employing the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The sample consisted of participants aged between 18 and 28 with diverse demographic characteristics (n = 323), and statistical procedures were carried out using IBM SPSS Statistics software. According to the findings, female participants had longer viewing times than male participants, and Netflix was identified as the most commonly used platform. It was followed by Prime Video, BluTV, and Disney+. Regression analyses based on the TAM framework revealed that as perceptions of innovation and emotional value attributed to the platform increased, perceived usefulness also increased. In turn, higher perceived usefulness and emotional value led to a more positive attitude toward using the platform. As both attitude toward use and perceived usefulness increased, so did behavioural intention (i.e., intention to use). Emotional value was identified as the latent variable with the highest mean score, indicating that participants form emotional connections with the platforms’ content and the characters featured in it. A clear tendency among the younger generation towards preferring video streaming services was observed, and participants expressed a strong preference for viewing content on the largest screen available to them. It has been determined that streaming services are preferred more than conventional cinema and broadcasting practices; the emotional bond established with the platform has been identified as the most decisive factor influencing this preference.