Ineffective content discovery is emerging as a major trigger for streaming churn, according to Gracenote’s new 2025 State of Play report.
Across 3,000 consumers in the United States, UK, Germany, France, Brazil and Mexico, nearly one-third say fragmentation across platforms is damaging their TV experience, rising to 40% among 25–34-year-olds. While appetite for streaming remains strong, 45% of respondents describe the overall experience as overwhelming, with viewers spending an average of 14 minutes searching for something to watch; in France, that climbs to 26 minutes, the length of a typical half-hour show.
The consequences are directly commercial. Gracenote reports that 19% of users will abandon a viewing session if they cannot quickly find suitable content, rising to 29% among 18–24-year-olds, while 49% are willing to cancel a service outright if discovery is too difficult. Viewers are looking for aggregation rather than more siloed interfaces: two-thirds of respondents want a single guide spanning all of their services and clear pointers to where specific titles are available. With many users currently heading to the open internet before using in-service search, Gracenote argues that platforms which invest in richer metadata, unified guides and smarter recommendations can both simplify a congested landscape and position themselves as primary gateways for viewing and ad monetisation.
For streamers, pay TV operators and device makers pushing super-aggregation, the findings reinforce that UX and metadata are now core retention tools, not just hygiene factors. Gracenote positions its own data sets and discovery products as part of the answer, but the report’s broader signal is clear: in a saturated market, the ability to get viewers to something relevant within a few clicks may be as important as the catalogue itself.
