A New Streaming Customer Emerges: The Subscription Pauser (msn.com)
- Reference: 0175452083
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/24/11/11/2138233/a-new-streaming-customer-emerges-the-subscription-pauser
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/a-new-streaming-customer-emerges-the-subscription-pauser/ar-AA1tSpBv
> As subscription prices rise and streaming-centric home entertainment becomes the norm, families are establishing their own hierarchies of always-on services versus those that come and go with seasons of hit shows or sports. New data from subscription analytics provider Antenna offer a deeper look at the subscription pausing habits customers are developing as services like Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV+ become the go-to way of watching TV in many households, instead of cable.
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> The monthly median percentage of premium streaming video subscribers who rejoined the same service they had canceled within the prior year was 34.2% in the first nine months of 2024, up from 29.8% in 2022. The habit of pausing and resuming service means that the industrywide rate of customer defections, which has risen over the past year, is less pronounced than it appears. The average rate of U.S. customer cancellations among premium streaming video services reached 5.2% in August, but after factoring in re-subscribers, the rate of defections was lower at 3.5%.
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> The increasingly ingrained habit underscores the importance of streamers regularly delivering hit shows and films as well as live fare such as sporting events. Streaming services are trying to use a mix of bundles, promotions, well-timed marketing emails and lower-cost ad-supported plans to lure customers back faster or help them feel they are getting enough value to stick around longer.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/a-new-streaming-customer-emerges-the-subscription-pauser/ar-AA1tSpBv
I tip my hat to those with the patience (Score:3)
Half the time I can't even remember to fetch copies of the shows I'm fond of watching from the high seas when new episodes come out. There's no way I'd remember to cancel and resubscribe. I just keep Amazon Prime because it's included with the shipping, and my partner gets access to a major streaming service as a perk from his employer.
Most of the time though, I'm just re-watching old Stargate episodes from my media server with Kodi. I'm at that age where everything new kind of sucks anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not that hard; you just need to keep a permanent list of all the streaming services you rotate through, and make sure it's kept updated with "subscribed on" / "unsubscribed on" dates.
The other thing I do is - when I unsubscribe from a service, I move that service's app down to the bottom of the Apple TV main screen. When I re-subscribe, the icon gets moved back up towards the top. I assume you can do the same sort of thing with Fire Sticks and Google's stuff as well.
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I would hate keeping tabs on all the subscriptions and turning them on/off all the time.
I have a nice DVD collection of selected films and a few series, and there's rarely something new that I would miss if I couldn't watch it.
I do like to sniff out downloads if I'm in the mood for some nostalgia, like some Magnum or the first season of Miami Vice I'm currently watching with one eye while doing some simple stuff. Everything Stargate I already binged several years ago. :-)
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I didn't watch most of Atlantis (but enough to be amused when Jason Momoa broke through) maybe i should try to find it / check it out.
I wish SGU had gotten another few seasons...
Wait until minimum subscription period is 3 months (Score:2)
MAny of the streamers will adapt in many ways:
1.) Minimum subscription period is now 3 months.
2.) Seasonal promotions of the type: buy three months, get the fourth free.
3.) For a season , dump the first three episodes in one go, then episode a week, until 3 three episode season finale all at once. (I perosnally would reeeealy love that)
4.) Bundling with other streaming services.
5.) Bundling with other Stuff (shops like costco, airline loyalty programs like AAdvantage, your cell carrier, even Amex)
So, no big
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Yeah I've got a bunch bundled with Verizon which has locked the price. It's the crappier ad tier but I'm not paying enough to pause them when I'm using them less right now. As things change I'll get back to turning them on and off throughout the year.
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While binging is satisfying in the moment, it also pushes a movie-like pacing because that's how the creators expect you to consume their product.
But even a season is a bad idea. It's really difficult to turn out more than a dozen good episodes of television a year, always has been. If you can only do a dozen episodes a year, I say throw out one a month. There's more than enough content out there that you could follow 30 different shows that way and have a new thing to watch every day. And in 'shared un
This is why streamers are long-term doomed (Score:2)
There's no point in having your own streaming service, trying to build a walled garden. People will always want something that's not in your catalog, and they will always be willing to jump ship.
Content generation and content delivery are naturally different beasts, and the streaming giants would probably be doing themselves a favor by setting up delivery sharing agreements.
And since delivery is mainly geographical in nature (it's the internet, but you probably want some serious regional caching), let loca
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> People will always want something that's not in your catalog, and they will always be willing to jump ship.
Board the ship with the jolly roger there matey and plunder the seas for a bounty the likes of which ye never seen.
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I have no idea what you mean, and neither does my parrot.
Cue reconnection fees if service is paused (Score:4, Insightful)
,,, for more than once in a service year.
Streaming company bosses: Ain't no one going to get in our way of profits.
All content has an artificial price based on scarcity because it would be worthless if it was shared too easily. This calls into question its real value.
Don't forget the "coutner activist" (Score:5, Interesting)
They who will cut a sub to a service because that service funds "activist" groups they find distasteful.
*waves at Disney and Hulu*
Not a penny from me to Disney, Pixar and Hulu, for leveraging #metoo to boot Lassater and drag all the Disney-owned franchises into pandering hell.
Not only did I cut all the Disney-related services, now when I do buy old Disney / Pixar / Lucasfilm stuff I buy used from ebay or local 2nd-hand shops.
Not a penny to the mouse or any of his properties.
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Do megacorps worry about that much though? I have a hard time imagining the majority of customers do enough research to not end up consuming a competing brand from the same umbrella. For every you that realizes Hulu and D+ are the same there's folks that switched from Bud Light to a different InBev beer without knowing any better.
What a surprise (Score:2)
You open a grocery store with a subscription model, "$99 a month and all-you-can-take", and you are surprised that people would subscribe, get truckloads of groceries home, and then un-sub until they needed stuff again?
The old cable subscription model works because people cannot timeshift. Similarly, $299 a month all-you-can-eat meal plans subscriptions could work because you can't take 3-months worth of food home and then un-sub. But TV shows and films? It isn't hard to binge watch everything you wanted
Re: (Score:3)
> GoT was something no studio can replicate yet.
GoT was so good that not even GoT could replicate it in the last season. >_
I'm the old kind of streaming customer (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a customer at all. Netflix canceled my Basic plan so now they get nothing. Not sure why they think that's better.
Quite happy with Sonarr + Plex instead.
I tend to keep subs going (Score:2)
But I guess I am too lazy to cancel some of them.
One thing that the channels could do is advertise more of what they have on. Amazon Prime doesn't list all of what the add-on channels have once you are subscribed.
that's me (Score:2)
Yeah, that's me-- if there's a series we want to watch, I subscribe to whatever service has it, then when we're done, and want to watch something that's on a different service, unsubscribe.
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Apple TV is the big one for me for this. There just isn't enough content to justify a forever subscription. Not even remotely.
So my pattern is once a year I resub for a month to catch the latest seasons of whatever I'm watching , theres a few of them, and then once done, unsubscribe for the year.
Theres some good shows on that thing. Severence, Invasion (S2 was far better than the first season, which suffered terrible pacing problems) , For all mankind and even Foundation (terrible adaption of the book, but