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New data shows that a record number of customers aren’t outright canceling their streaming services when they run out of titles to watch — they’re pausing them.
The Big Picture: The uptick in people pausing their streamers instead of canceling them complicates the easy math of companies gaining and losing subscribers. Those numbers can ebb and flow at a moment’s notice if new content isn’t constantly debuting.
Behind The Scenes: Market-data firm Antenna crunched the numbers on how the hierarchy of power is changing (lol) in the streaming economy — the power of the pause.
- The median number of premium streaming subscribers who signed back up within a year increased from 29.8% to 34.2%.
- So, although there was a cumulative churn rate of 5.2% across platforms, it actually drops down to 3.5% when no longer counting people who resubscribe. That’s good news for the industry.
- But breaking down the data, Max appears to have the most pausers (31% of subscribers), while Netflix had the least (11%).
Closing Credits: Streamers are getting smart about the power of the pause. Hulu and Netflix allow customers to easily pause their subscriptions for up to three months, and Disney+ will be rolling out the ability soon. Why make it easier for customers to stop paying? Because when customers know they can just pause, it could keep them from canceling and then forgetting to resubscribe. Having payments restart takes out the friction of bringing the subscriber back into the fold.
As more streamers discover the trends behind the pauses, expect them to retool their release plans to minimize the subscriber impact each quarter and better remind past users when their favorite shows are returning.
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