What They Say
Kantar has reported on the US SVOD market and Advanced Television had details.
Entertainment on Demand, the solution measuring streaming service subscription levels, reveals the following subscriber behaviours in the US for the third quarter of 2021:
- The proportion of US households who have a video subscription has dropped to 85 per cent (down 1 per cent points QoQ, and up 2 per cent points YoY), meaning there are now 109 million households with subscriptions, as of September 2021.
- Video streaming QoQ penetration decline is driven by SVoD which declined 1.5 per cent points.
- Video streaming sheds off solus service subscribers/users; 85 per cent of penetration losses in Q3 2021 are those who accessed just 1 video streaming service in the previous quarter.
- Amazon Prime Video is the #1 destination for new subscribers for the second consecutive quarter, but subscriber churn is higher than acquisition, resulting in overall loss of penetration of 2.4 per cent points QoQ.
- Netflix subscriber base continues to sit at 2/3 of US subscribers, but penetration continues to decline QoQ by 1.8 per cent pts.
- Despite QoQ penetration decline, the number of households taking out/accessing new services is up as stacking continues to grow among current streamers.
- With the success of Ted Lasso, the top most enjoyed and recommended content in Q3 2021, Apple TV+ gains share of new SVoD subscribers (now at 7 per cent of new subscriptions) and NPS is up 18 points.
- Within FAST (Free Ad-Supported TV), ‘price’ and ‘ease of use’ break down barriers for sign up, but as high stacking and content wars continue, there is risk of disuse and churn among free services.
- Q4 can expect to see more retention of subscribers, but more competition for screen time. Trending content will help determine who wins in Q4 2021.
There is plenty more detail in the linked article.
What We Think
It’s interesting that those that accessed just one subscription in the previous quarter make up 6/7 of those unsubscribing. But that’s not really surprising. Those are probably the viewers that may be most economically challenged, or simply find that they don’t take to streaming. I have found, as a viewer, that it is relatively easy to get out of the habit of watching a series or title and drift away from Netflix and Prime, but then, these days, I watch a lot more video from YouTube than TV, but then I was an early adopter of Tivo when it first arrived in the UK almost 20 years ago. I remember having to explain to sales staff in the local Dixons store what a Tivo was. They had no clue.
By chance, yesterday, Paul Kedrosky published the chart below on the historic trend for Netflix. It shows the flattening of Netflix in the US & Canada (BR)
