A growing number of subscribers to video streaming services such as Netflix (NFLX) and Hulu (DIS) are pausing their subscriptions with plans to return in the future — rather than canceling them permanently — according to data from the streaming analytics firm Antenna.
This dynamic comes as streaming prices continue to climb.
About 57 million subscriptions to video streaming platforms between September 2023 and August 2024 came from users who were rejoining a service they canceled within the previous 12 months. This accounted for 34% of the total 169 million new subscriptions during that period. In 2022, re-joiners only accounted for 29.8% of subscriptions that year.
“We know entertainment streaming services are cyclical: whether for a hit title or live sports, users often sign-up for the season, cancel during the offseason, and resubscribe at the start of the next season,” Antenna co-founder and president Rameez Tase wrote in a newsletter on Nov. 10, explaining this growing user behavior.
However, not all streaming services are being affected to the same degree. Newer sports-heavy platforms such as Paramount+ (PARA) and services focused primarily on big-budget TV series such as Max (WBD) have the highest number of users that have subscribed to their platforms multiple times. This suggests subscriptions to these services are more prone to be tied to a particular show or sporting event.
Conversely, established brands with household names and large media libraries such as Netflix and Disney+ have a higher percentage of subscribers who have never paused their subscriptions.
Tase said he recommends that streamers build strategies around these predictable patterns.
“If you know which groups of users will return, and for what reason, you should be able to generate that resubscribe with ~0 additional marketing cost, maybe just with a simple email, text, or phone call,” he said.
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