Preventing subscription churn

We’ve heard the news: subscription churn is on the rise as households look to save money by cancelling non-essential services. Market research company Kantar reported that 1.51 million streaming service subscriptions were cancelled in Q1 of 2022. That’s not just churn, but a stomach-churning statistic. It’s not a reason to panic – yet – as these numbers seem drastic, but we need to be mindful of the boom in subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) during the pandemic. At the height of the lockdown, adults spent an average of 6 hours and 25 minutes each day staring at screens. Most of this time was spent on streaming services, with 12 million people joining a streaming service they hadn’t used previously. Naturally, as the cost-of-living increases, those same people would cut their least essential services. The potentially million-dollar question is: how do you stop your service from becoming part of that statistic? Read on to find out.

Content, insights and analytics

What’s your most popular show? When do your viewers watch? What content works back-to-back? The biggest names in the OTT world have some of the best content, this is key to keeping your audience engaged and subscribed. However, market research conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence found that the top reason for users cancelling their subscriptions to Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, Hulu, and Disney+, was that there was not enough content. Data is key to streaming services continually improving their content to reduce subscription churn. That’s why, here at Simplestream, we keep a close eye on data, and provide insights and analytics integrations for your chosen solution.

Advertising

Many were shocked to hear that some of the largest SVOD streaming services were looking at advertising to make up for lost revenue. Advertising video-on-demand (AVOD) represents a significant growth area in the industry, with advertising spend in this area set to more than double over the next five years. AVOD revenue is projected to increase from $33 billion in 2021, to $70 billion by 2027. Our set of solutions, again, can help you achieve your business objectives more quickly. Whether you are setting up an OTT application through our proprietary, cloud-based and OVP-agnostic App Platform. or need a flexible modular CMS to seamlessly integrate with your existing services, such as Media Manager, we can help you. And it doesn’t matter what your preferred way of distributing (and monetising) your content is. AVOD can exist standalone, or in combination with existing SVOD strategies.

FAST Channels

We spoke about how the cord-cutters could be the new SVOD-trimmers according to our CCO, Dan Finch. Linear content distribution is having a resurgence, with many content owners setting up Free Advertising-Supported TV (FAST) Channels to redistribute existing on demand content linearly. This is an ideal solution to present content for free, while still generating revenue from Server-Side Ad Insertion (SSAI). Imagine creating a thematic channel based on a specific genre of your content and presenting that in a loop for your viewers to dip in and out of as they like, fighting decision fatigue and providing a cost-effective solution for the end-user.

Feature-rich applications

Build a greater experience, and users will come – this used t be true… when the market wasn’t as saturated as it might be today. Having a fantastic library of content is only half the battle, the other half is ensuring your users know about it. Today, it’s key for operators to be able to market their content to the target audience in an engaging way that doesn’t interrupt their experience. Whether that’s an upcoming live event, topical item based on the content they’re engaging with or a one-off TVOD purchase. Simplestream’s latest dedicated App Platform feature, Promo UI, lets you do all of this – and more. You own the content, let your users own the experience.