One in three Canadians have canceled at least one subscription video on demand service in the past month according to new research from Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit Canadian research firm. At least half said the cancellations were due to inflation, while others (39%) said they weren’t using certain services as much and nearly 25% said the canceled service didn’t meet their expectations.
However, more than four-in-five (85%) now say they have at least one streaming service subscription, up from approximately half in 2016.
Another popular trend in the Great White North is cord-cutting: Just three-in-five now say they subscribe to cable or satellite TV, according to the survey. This represents a five-point drop from 2018 and a 27-point drop over the past decade.
This trend is primarily with younger viewers as 82% of Canadians over the age of 54 say they still subscribe; compared to only 41% of 18- to 34-year-olds. More than three quarters of respondents don’t believe they’re getting their money’s worth from their pay-TV subscriptions, with 40% planning to cancel in the near future.
Back to SVOD, a majority (65%) of Canadians subscribe to more than one, including two-in-five (40%) who subscribe to three or more, although ARI notes that password sharing could mean that the actual total of subscribers reported may be higher than the number of individual subscriptions.
Canadians over the age of 64 are the only age group of whom a majority do not subscribe to more than one streaming service, but still two-in-five (41%) of this age have access to at least two. Meanwhile, half of Canadians aged 35 to 54 (48%) subscribe to three or more SVOD services.
The results are from an online survey conducted from Oct. 11-13, 2022 among a representative randomized sample of 1,618 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum.
