Global consulting firm Deloitte recently released its annual media and telecom predictions report which pointed to an issue that is only going to grow bigger – streaming churn.
Unlike cable or phone contracts, SVOD services are designed in a way that one can easily cancel and/or renew them at any time, leading to the practice of people (especially members of Gen Z) jumping between services – Peacock one month, Paramount+ the next, Showtime the next, etc.
Churn refers to the percentage of subscribers who discontinue their service and are replaced by new (or re-activated) ones. In the report, Deloitte predicts that more than 150 million people will cancel a paid streaming subscription in 2022, with a global churn rate of 30% and a U.S. one as high as 38%.
One advantage here is that nothing is permanent and subscribers can – and do – re-subscribe when content arrives that interests them. The firm predicts more subscriptions overall will be added in totality than cancelled so the overall average number of subscriptions per person will rise.
Thus the challenge of streaming services is to not only scale up and grow their subscriber bases but to also keep existing subscribers engaged with plenty of fresh quality content and value pricing.
Source: THR