New streaming releases Wednesday, The Crown and Andor have helped bolster subscription video-on-demand services, but one in 10 British consumers still plan to cancel subscriptions in the first quarter.
According to Kantar’s Entertainment on Demand (EoD) data, the number of VOD-enabled households that subscribed to at least one video streaming service in Great Britain rose to 16.24 million, up 55,000, quarter-on-quarter, representing 56% of households.
5% of British households took out a new streaming subscription during the final quarter of the year, down from 6% a year earlier.
The total number of video streaming services being subscribed to by British households rose by over 300,000 in the quarter, with Prime Video, AppleTV+ and Paramount+ driving the major gains.
After 12 months, when one million British households dropped out of the SVOD market, the final quarter of 2022 brought some relief, with the sector returning to growth.
Prime Video had a strong final quarter of the year, with an increasing number of households taking out Prime memberships and using the Prime delivery service in the run-up to the Christmas holidays.
However, while Disney+ maintained its subscriber growth in the fourth quarter, Disney+ subscriber satisfaction with the number of new release films dropped to its lowest point throughout the year.
The recently launched Paramount+ service continues to draw in new subscribers, achieving 7.6% share of new sign-ups in the latest quarter. Kantar says this signals that direct-to-consumer sales are increasing, reducing Paramount+’s reliance on the Sky Cinema partnership.
Discovery+ has something of the opposite challenge of Paramount+; it is managing to rapidly increase subscriber satisfaction levels but struggling to accelerate growth in numbers.
Last week it was announced Discovery+ was being made available free to Sky subscribers, replacing a 12-month introductory offer.
