More and more consumers are managing their portfolio of streaming services by opting for a mix of ad-free and ad-supported plans. Data shows that U.S. consumers are growing increasingly comfortable with advertising in streaming environments; by the end of 2024, Antenna estimates 45% of Premium SVOD subscriptions were ad-supported, up +9pts from the previous year 2023.
When it comes to demographics, there’s not much difference between ad-free and ad-supported subscribers. But what about customer loyalty? Are ad-free subscribers more loyal than those who opt into ad-supported plans?
No, they’re not. Looking at gross additions during the first half of 2024 across Premium SVOD services that offer both ad-supported and ad-free plans, Antenna observed no loyalty difference through 6 months.
Across both ad-supported and ad-free tiers, 77% of Subscribers were still subscribed at Month 1, 62% remained subscribed at Month 3, and 50% remained subscribed at Month 6.
While Survival Rates show minimal differences in loyalty, ad-supported tiers do have higher Churn Rates than ad-free. In December 2024, the Churn Rate for ad-free plans was 4.0%, compared to 5.8% for ad-supported. It’s worth noting that a large portion of ad-free subscribers are long-tenured Netflix users, which can weigh down the metric.
For more detailed information on Antenna’s methodology and definitions of core metrics, please visit http://www.antenna.live/methodology.
