Antenna Insights On The Subscription Economy

As Antenna has previously discussed, Ad-Supported Subscriptions are helping to drive growth in streaming video right now.

Apple Music recently announced that they are raising plan prices for Apple Music and Apple TV+. Amazon similarly raised the monthly prices of two of its Amazon Music Unlimited plans by $1 each on May 5, 2022. We dove into Sign-ups for Amazon Music Unlimited in the months following the price increase in an effort to explore how this price change may have impacted the Service’s acquisition efforts.

During the previous 2022 Prime Day held in July, Amazon once again offered Prime Members a discounted rate on SVOD subscriptions.

For the past several quarters, as the industry discussed growth slowdowns for some streaming players, Antenna emphasized that overall growth in the Premium SVOD category was still historically high. The second quarter of 2022 was different: Premium SVOD still grew, but not by much.

With Disney+ and Netflix each planning to launch lower-cost, Ad-Supported Subscription tiers in the coming months, it’s clear both companies are exploring a shift in strategy and opportunities for new revenue streams. As a result, investors, brands, marketers, and the industry at large are wondering how this will impact the current streaming landscape. To help answer that question, Antenna looked to HBO Max—which launched its own Ad-Supported lan roughly a year ago—to better understand the impact of Ad-Supported tiers on streaming video subscriptions. 

In the past few months, there’s been much ado about the state of the streaming industry given Netflix’ announcements regarding Q1’22 performance. Antenna analyzed the contributing factors to Netflix’ Q1’22 results, and the behavior of their Q1’22 churned subscribers. We identified a significant increase in Netflix Cancels, which begs the question: are other SVOD Services benefiting from this Netflix churn?

Last week, we dove into Netflix’ Q1’22 results and closely examined the contributing factors to their net subscriber loss. While gross additions have remained relatively stable, Netflix saw 3.6M Cancels in Q1'22 — over one million more than the service dealt with in both Q1'21 and Q4'21. We decided to further unpack the behavior of these churned subscribers and their engagement with other SVOD platforms.

Netflix Q1'22 results revealed a quarterly net subscriber loss. Antenna unpacked some of the latest dynamics around the company in the United States, its most mature market.

Peloton recently announced the testing of a new pricing system that will include a piece of equipment and subscription for one monthly fee; customers will be permitted to cancel at any time with no charge. We wanted to take stock of how Peloton's two-tiered pricing system has performed in the past, which may offer an indication of how the new structure could fare (should it receive a full roll out).