Reportedly 30% of All Streaming Sign-Ups in 2023 Were Resubscriptions; Customers React to Pricing, Content Changes
Apple TV+ led all streamers in terms of resubscription rate, which reflects the streamer’s quality-over-quantity approach.
Streaming providers are not seeing the reaction they want from customers to rising prices. The goal behind raising ad-free streaming costs in 2023 by 25% was to get more customers to sign up for ad-supported plans because that generates more revenue, but the strategy has apparently backfired. A recent survey found that 36% of subscribers had upgraded a streaming plan to avoid ads, and new data released on Tuesday by subscription research firm Antenna shows that viewers are more and more willing to cancel a service, only to then resubscribe to it later in order to save money.
- Antenna’s latest survey shows that 30% of streaming subscriptions in 2023 were for a service a customer had subscribed to and canceled within the preceding 12 months.
- Apple TV+ had the highest resubscribe rate in 2023, while Netflix had the lowest.
- In all, an average of 41% of subscribers come back to a canceled service within one year.
Antenna’s data shows that in 2023, 30% of gross subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) subscriptions were “resubscribers,” which the data analysis firm defines as people who subscribed to a streamer after having canceled it within the past 12 months. This clearly represents a significant portion of the total streaming audience and gives providers a new goal: give former customers as many reasons to resubscribe as possible. Obviously, the goal is to engage subscribers as much as possible so they don’t exit the service, but in today’s streaming transient environment, that is not always possible. Apple TV+ led all streaming services with a resubscribe rate of 37.2% in 2023, while Netflix’s resubscribe rate plummeted to 26%.
Click images to expand.
Apple TV+’s high rate of resubscriptions is almost certainly attributable to its quality-over-quantity approach to its content library. The streamer has made a point of only offering original series and movies with high production values on its platform, a tactic which leads many customers to cancel their subscription once a chosen title is finished, then sign up again once a new show or movie they’re interested in comes to Apple TV+. The streamer recently added 50+ non-original movies, perhaps in the name of bringing more library content to its catalog to keep viewers from canceling so readily. However, those films are only anticipated to be on the platform through April, some of them exiting after only a few months.
Antenna attributes Netflix’s relatively poor showing to the streamer’s efforts to crack down on password sharing in 2023. Netflix started rolling out restrictions on account sharing in May 2023, and according to Antenna, this led to many first-time sign-ups by individuals who had previously used the service through another person’s account. So, the reason that the world’s largest streaming service didn’t do better in terms of resubscriptions, is because it had a significant number of new subscribers who didn’t cancel. Another recent report from Antenna showed that while the churn rate had climbed nearly 300% in the past four years, Netflix was the least-canceled platform overall in that time.
What Should Streamers Do with Antenna’s Data?
As the numbers from Antenna make clear, streamers have a choice on their hands. Should they attempt to win back former customers, or should they focus their efforts on keeping viewers from departing their streaming services in the first place?
As much as the latter option would appeal to providers, the easiest answer may be trying to win back departed subscribers. Antenna’s numbers show that these efforts are already largely successful, as its weighted average shows that 41% of all customers resubscribe to a given streaming service within 12 months.
Click images to expand.
Clearly, every streaming service would like to cut down on original cancelations, but there are limited options available for keeping customers subscribed once they’re signed up. Streamers like Disney+ and Hulu which lie below the weighted average win-back line already have big libraries of titles to keep viewers entertained while they wait for a new show or movie to land on the platform, and if customers are still willing to cancel in the face of these big content hauls, there’s only so much they can do about it. Adding live sports is a good way to keep customers engaged with streaming platforms, but the expense of sports rights makes that prohibitive for most SVOD streamers, especially considering sports don’t fit alongside the programming of many streaming services.
Bundling streamers together to reduce costs, as well as the number of bills customers have to pay every month will help drive churn down. But streamers are just now beginning the process of voluntarily bundling with other services, and until a wide selection of such bundles is available streaming providers will have to focus their efforts on winning back former customers, as their choices for reducing churn are somewhat limited.
Apple TV+
Apple TV+ is a subscription video streaming service for $9.99 a month that includes high-quality original shows and movies including Best Picture winner “CODA,” popular sitcom “Ted Lasso,” and dramas like “The Morning Show” and “Severance.” Apple TV+ is also home to MLB baseball games on Friday nights and MLS Season Pass.