More of us signed up for streaming services ahead of Christmas, but a wave of cancellations is expected.
According to Kantar, the data insights and consulting company, the number of video-on-demand enabled households that subscribed to at least one streaming service in Great Britain during the last three months of 2022 rose to 16.24 million, up 55,000 quarter-on-quarter.
Kantar’s Entertainment on Demand report also found that Prime Video and Paramount+ were driving the gains. Kantar said 61% of Amazon Prime members used Prime Video.
But in a sign of households tightening their belts, there’s an indication that many of those new subscriptions are only temporary.
Kantar found that the proportion of viewers planning to cancel one or more subscription video streaming service in the next three months was at 12%, up from 10% in the previous quarter’s survey.
This indicates that many only subscribed for something to watch over the Christmas period.
5% of British households took out a new streaming subscription during the final quarter of the year. That’s down from 6% a year earlier.
It follows a torrid 12 months for streaming providers. During the past 12 months, over one million British households have completely stopped subscribing to a video on-demand service. In total two million subscriptions have been cancelled, whereby some households will have cancelled more than one service.
Other findings
Kantar’s research shows Paramount+ has managed to reduce its reliance on Sky for new subscribers. Much of its early uptake was linked to the service being available at no extra cost to Sky Cinema subscribers. Discovery+ meanwhile struggled to attract new subscribers. However, those that do subscribe to Discovery+ are reported to be broadly satisfied with the service.
Finally, Kantar’s data shows just 4% of Netflix subscribers downgraded to Netflix with Ads.
Marc Thornham