Antenna Insights On The Subscription Economy

Black Friday, the de facto start of the holiday shopping season in the U.S., is a big deal for streaming video. In anticipation of Black Friday 2024, we’re taking a look back to see how streaming services have taken advantage of this bargain hunting moment to acquire new (and in some cases, returning) customers.

Sports is an important part of the streaming landscape, already serving as a major thrust in the programming strategies for Peacock, Paramount+, and Max; and playing an increasing role for Netflix, Amazon and Apple TV+. In addition to the sports programming available on premium streaming services, the leagues also operate sport-specific services targeting particular pockets of their fan audiences.

Churn – the percentage of customers who cancel in a given time period – has long been a gold standard metric for subscription-based businesses, and Antenna has reported it from our day one. 

As the streaming market continues to mature and consumers grow more comfortable with the user experience, Specialty SVOD – the segment of the streaming video industry comprising services that offer programming tailored to specific areas of interests – is reaping the benefits.

Specialty SVOD, the segment of the streaming video industry comprising services that offer programming tailored to specific areas of interests, has seen robust growth in recent years, outpacing its Premium SVOD counterpart (albeit off a smaller base).

Beyond the riveting competition, inspiring stories, and meme-generating moments, the 2024 Summer Olympics delivered huge audiences for NBCU. Paris 2024 also marked the first time the entire Olympics Games were fully available in the U.S. via streaming on Peacock.

Recent Antenna data shows that growth across SVOD continued to moderate in the second quarter of 2024. Overall, there were 45.3M Gross Additions and 43.3M Cancels to SVOD services in Q2’24, resulting in 1.9M Net Additions.

Annual plans have been successful in other subscription categories at mitigating churn, but have not been heavily used by video streamers. At the end of Q1 2024, Antenna estimated that just 4% of subscriptions across 41 SVOD services were to annual plans.

As linear television audiences continue to decline, causing a choppy ad market, there are real questions about whether ad-supported streaming can make up the difference.