Where Is Your Media Budget Actually Going in 2025?

Australians are spending more on digital entertainment than ever before — but research suggests many of us have little idea where that money is actually going each month. According to Deloitte’s 2025 Media & Entertainment Consumer Insights report, the average Australian household now spends $78 a month on digital entertainment subscriptions alone — a 24% jump from the year before — while simultaneously spending less time consuming the content they’re paying for. It’s a pattern worth pausing on.

The shift from physical to digital entertainment has happened quickly, and most of us are now managing a sprawling mix of streaming services, gaming platforms, music apps, and interactive entertainment options — often without ever sitting down to audit what we actually use. With cost-of-living pressures still very much a reality for families across regional Victoria and New South Wales, knowing how to assess value in your entertainment spending has become a genuinely practical skill.

The Subscription Stack Is Bigger Than Most People Realise

The Telsyte Australian Subscription Entertainment Study 2025 found that Australia’s subscription entertainment market grew 5% to nearly 54.6 million services in the year to June 2025 — across streaming video, music, and gaming platforms. The average household now holds 3.3 streaming video services alone, with many also paying for separate gaming and music subscriptions on top of that.

What’s striking is that 47% of streaming video subscribers describe their service as “non-negotiable” — it’s now treated less like a luxury and more like a utility. For regional communities where a night out at the cinema or a live event involves a long drive and a bigger outlay, that attitude makes sense. Digital entertainment genuinely fills a gap.

But the category has quietly expanded well beyond Netflix and Spotify. Interactive entertainment has become a growing slice of what Australians focus on. According to Newgamenetwork, that convergence — between passive content like streaming and interactive platforms where users are actively engaged — is increasingly what defines how Australians think about entertainment value.

Getting Value Out of What You’re Already Paying For

The Deloitte research noted something that will resonate with a lot of households: Australians are paying more for entertainment but spending less time consuming it. Nearly two-thirds of subscribers say they need multiple subscriptions to access the content they want, yet 78% admitted they’re worried about their overall subscription spend.

That tension — paying more, watching less, feeling anxious about the bill — is a signal worth acting on. A few practical habits can help get your digital entertainment spend back under control:

Audit your subscriptions every quarter. Most people have at least one service they forgot they were paying for. A 15-minute check of your bank statement against a list of what you actively use will almost always find something to cut.

Understand value per platform. A gaming subscription you use for three hours a day delivers very different value per dollar than a streaming service you watch twice a month. The Telsyte data found that 63% of gamers playing over three hours daily describe games as a “must-have” — for those users, that subscription genuinely earns its place.

Look at ad-supported tiers. Nearly all major streaming platforms now offer cheaper ad-supported plans. Switching just two subscriptions to ad-supported tiers could save a household $15–$20 a month without meaningfully changing how they watch.

Compare before committing. Whether it’s a gaming service, a new streaming platform, or an interactive entertainment option, taking five minutes to read an independent review before signing up saves both money and frustration — especially for platforms where fine print around cancellations or welcome offer terms can be easy to miss.

The Interactive Entertainment Shift

One of the more notable trends in the Telsyte data is the growth of gaming subscriptions — up 7% year-on-year to 9.7 million active subscriptions by June 2025. That growth has been driven partly by hardware cycles (the Nintendo Switch 2 launch brought a wave of new subscribers) but more fundamentally by a shift in how people prefer to access entertainment: on-demand, across devices, with the flexibility to dip in and out.

That preference for flexible, low-commitment access has shaped the design of platforms across the entertainment spectrum. It’s why subscription gaming edged out traditional single-purchase titles. It’s why short-form interactive content has surged. And it’s part of why interactive real-money platforms have invested heavily in mobile-first experiences and faster transaction processing — they’re competing in the same attention economy as Netflix and Spotify, and they know it.

The consumer takeaway is straightforward: the more interactive a platform is, the more important it is to go in with clear expectations about how much time and money you’re prepared to spend. A streaming subscription has a fixed monthly cost; interactive platforms — whether a gaming service with in-app purchases or a real-money platform — have variable spending potential that’s worth thinking about in advance.

What This Means Practically

The average Australian’s entertainment budget is now spread across more platforms and more categories than it was five years ago. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — digital entertainment has genuinely expanded what’s accessible to people in regional areas who don’t have the same range of live options as major cities.

But a sprawling subscription stack without regular review is a budget leak. The households that will get the most out of Australia’s thriving digital entertainment landscape are the ones that stay active consumers rather than passive ones — choosing deliberately, reviewing regularly, and knowing where the value is.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are Australians spending more on entertainment subscriptions despite cost-of-living pressure? Research from both Telsyte and Deloitte suggests digital entertainment is now considered closer to a household utility than a luxury. When other discretionary spending gets cut, streaming and gaming subscriptions tend to survive — they deliver low cost-per-hour compared to going out, and they work around family schedules.

How many streaming subscriptions does the average Australian household have? According to the Telsyte Australian Subscription Entertainment Study 2025, the average subscribing household holds 3.3 streaming video services, plus separate gaming and music subscriptions on top. Deloitte’s 2025 data put the overall household average at 3.7 services across all digital entertainment categories.

What’s the easiest way to cut entertainment subscription spending without losing content I like? Start with an audit — list every subscription and what you paid last month. Identify anything unused or rarely used. Most platforms now offer ad-supported tiers at lower price points, and bundled plans (through telcos or Amazon Prime, for example) can reduce the combined cost of multiple services.

Is online gaming growing faster than video streaming in Australia? Gaming-related subscriptions grew 7% year-on-year to June 2025, slightly outpacing the 5% growth in streaming video, according to Telsyte. The launch of new hardware and the expansion of cloud gaming have been the main drivers.

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