New research from Antenna highlights the fact that the SVOD streaming market in the U.S. is growing increasingly mature with a growing proportion of new subscribers belonging to a category the researchers call “serial churners” who regularly cancel one streaming service and move to different SVOD services.
The data is notable because it has many implications for how subscription marketers manage the complexities of subscriber “acquisition” and “churn.”
Working with Adobe on a custom analysis to better understand subscribers and their path from one service to another, the new Antenna data indicates that a significant portion of SVOD subscribers “switch” (i.e. cancel one service and subscribe to another), “resubscribe” (i.e. cancel one service, but resubscribe to that same service later on), and “manage plans” (i.e. move across ad-supported and ad-free tiers, or standalone to bundled tiers).
“These behaviors are of critical importance for operators to understand, as they can reveal clues for how to best market to consumers in an effort to bolster lifetime value (LTV)," of a subscriber Brendan Brady, media and entertainment lead at Antenna explained in a blog post.
The research found that more than one-third of users who canceled a Premium SVOD service between Q1’21 and Q1’22 were “won-back” 12 months later. Nearly a quarter of these users were “won-back” within three (3) months after canceling.
However, the loyalty profile of users can vary significantly across lifetimes, Brady wrote.
“In aggregate, users who subscribed to a Premium SVOD service for the first time between Q1’21 and Q1’22 had a 12 month survival rate of 45%,” he wrote. “That survival rate dropped -9pts to 36% for users on their second lifetime, and -19pts to 26% for users on their third or more lifetime.”
The research also found that a rapidly growing portion of new subscribers is driving by those “serial churners.” In 2023, Antenna is reporting that about one third of new signups come from serial churners, up from only 10% ini 2019.
Antenna and Adobe will be co-presenting more findings about subscriber behavior, emerging segments of users, and the nuances associated with these dynamics at the “Adobe Experience Makers Webinar: Understanding the Streaming Subscriber Journey” on Tuesday, October 24th at 10:00 AM PT | 1:00 PM ET.
