Serial Churners Were Responsible for 56 Million Streaming Cancelations in 2023
New data from Antenna shows just how pervasive the problem of churn has become, leaving streamers with a difficult task.
There isn’t much sympathy among consumers for streaming executives these days. Rising prices and spreading restrictions on password sharing have customers feeling their fair share of antipathy toward streaming services, but streaming operators face an unenviable task: cutting down on churn. New research from Antenna shows that a challenging subset of customers has arisen thanks to the new realities of streaming: serial churners. This group of consumers who regularly cancel their subscriptions is making it difficult for services to rely on a consistent customer base.
- Antenna’s data shows that the serial churner segment grew 42% year-over-year in 2023.
- This segment of customers was responsible for 56 million streaming cancelations last year.
- Almost 20% of serial churners have canceled seven or more subscriptions in the past two years.
The numbers from Antenna show that streaming providers need to put their thinking caps on when it comes to creating more loyal customers. The subscription service-focused research firm defines “serial churners” as consumers who have canceled three or more premium subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) streamers like Netflix, Hulu, or Paramount+ in the past two years. The increased numbers of people in this cohort are spurred by the belief that signing up for streaming services to watch a small subset of content, and then canceling that service before being billed again, is the best way for customers to trim their entertainment budgets.
Antenna’s survey shows that as of the end of 2023, serial churners made up 23% of the total streaming audience. That’s a year-over-year increase of 42%, which is undoubtedly an eye-catching total from the perspective of streaming executives whose jobs rely on bringing in stable revenue for their platforms.
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Worse yet for such executives, Antenna has measured a marked increase in the number of times serial churners cancel their subscriptions. The research firm has broken out serial churners into three subcategories: Standard serial churners who have canceled three to four subscriptions over a two-year period; Heavy serial churners, who canceled five to six subscriptions in the same period; or Super heavy serial churners, who cancel seven or more services in the past two years.
A majority of serial churners (57%) belong to the standard serial churner category, while 23% are heavy serial churners, and the remaining 19% are super heavy serial churners. Three years ago, the category of super heavy serial churners was practically non-existent, but today this cohort is made up of millions of consumers.
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All in all, serial churners accounted for 56 million streaming cancelations in 2023 alone. Conversely, of course, they make up a disproportionate share of gross additions over the course of a year, and account for all acquisition growth measured by Antenna in 2023. This is a big reason that the net additions by top streamers measured by Antenna shrunk to just 24.2 million, the lowest number since before 2019.
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Are Streaming Providers Ignoring Serial Churn, or Simply Accepting It?
As bad as the problem of serial churn is becoming, there have been no correspondingly big moves by streaming providers to try and put a stop to the practice. Bundling could have a marked effect on churn, but there has been relatively little movement from streamers on creating cross-company bundles; Paramount and NBCUniversal have been discussing a combined offering of Peacock and Paramount+, but nothing has come from those talks so far.
Instead, streaming providers are increasingly turning their attention to international markets to find new customers. Just this week, it was reported that Apple TV+ had its eye on an expansion in China, which would make it the first American-based streaming service to launch in that market. Prime Video is trying to grow its footprint in India, and Paramount+ is launching various plans in new markets to give customers around the globe as many options as possible.
There’s no doubt that expanding streaming platforms to new audiences is critical for their long-term success, but focusing on such expansions now instead of trying to cut the number of serial churners in the United States suggests that providers know there’s only so much they can do about churn. If streamers are going to keep chasing higher average revenue per user in order to boost their profitability, using price increases in concert with password-sharing restrictions is the quickest and surest way to do it, even though it invariably leads to higher churn rates.
For customers, that means that a wave of price decreases is unlikely to roll out in the near future. Nor is Disney likely to reverse course on its plan to crack down on password sharing starting this summer; those ships have already sailed. Serial churn is likely to remain an issue for streaming providers, which is one reason they appear increasingly interested in overseas markets.
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