• In 2019 serial churners – folks who cancel subscriptions shortly after signing up – accounted for just 3 percent of US subscribers, now that figure sits at 38 percent.
• The good news for platforms is that 62 percent of subscribers maintain a subscription for at least six months.
• However, there is a growing trend of consumers hoping between subscription platforms rather than subscribing to the plethora of platforms available or maintaining one subscription.

Attracting new subscribers is the goal of all streaming services, but calling these users “new” may be a misnomer.

Given the plethora of streaming services available, many feel that the cost of keeping up with your favourite shows has become too high. So instead, users tend to subscribe to a service for a month or two before cancelling the subscription to watch content elsewhere.

Research firm Antenna calls these users serial churners and in the US, these folks now make up roughly 25 percent of streamers.

“Antenna has observed that among Serial Churners 38% have made three or more of their cancellations within the first three months of subscribing to a Premium SVOD service. In a media landscape where a user’s favorite shows can be spread across several different streaming services, this behavior suggests these users are “Show Chasers” who sign-up for a service to access specific content and then cancel shortly thereafter,” the research firm writes.

These show chasers and serial churners aren’t in the majority yet with 62 percent of subscribers maintaining a subscription for at least six months.

However, the massive leap in the number of serial churners should worry the likes of Netflix and Disney. In 2019, just 3 percent of subscribers were considered serial churners and to us the massive increase in the latest figures is a sign of subscription fatigue.

The days of subscribing to one platform and maintaining that subscription are long gone. Instead, folks are hoping between platforms. In 2023, Antenna found that 30 percent of gross additions to streaming services were just users resubscribing.

This is evident when looking at Apple TV+ which saw 37.2 percent of its subscriber gains coming from resubscribers. While the content on Apple TV+ is fantastic, releases are sporadic so unless you’re rewatching Ted Lasso every week, maintaining a subscription isn’t necessary. In fact, the platform with the lowest amount of resubscriptions is Netflix which speaks to its diverse spread of content that appears to keep folks maintaining their subscription.

Netflix recently announced that it would no longer be reporting how many subscribers it has in its quarterly reports. The firm argues that engagement time is most important, but we’re not buying it.

The moves to limit account sharing, the rise of advertising in streaming and – again – the sheer amount of subscriptions required to watch the latest content have all left a sour taste in the mouths of consumers. We’d hope that this trend signals to the powers that be that something needs to change but we doubt it will.

[Image – Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay]