One of my MIPTV 2023 highlights was Evan Shapiro's Mastermind Keynote on the changing media landscape and how producers and studios must change their mindsets to adapt to the new content world we are entering. He said that relevance and freshness are key to streamers' success in the current ecosystem and that he forecasts a great cutting back on SVOD subscriptions as consumers choose to change what they are subscribing to almost every month. What used to be linear-channel changing has become streamer churn, he explained. Now, Deloitte's latest Digital Media Trends report already confirms his prediction that subscription fatigue among consumers is only getting worse.
Feel the Churn: Churn Rates are Up As the Streaming Wars continue to intensify, subscription growth rates across the industry have slowed down, while churn rates have gone up. According to Deloitte, overall subscriber churn for paid SVOD services in the last six months is 44%. For Gen Z and Millennial consumers, those numbers even jump up to 57% and 62%, respectively. Also, around a quarter of consumers have churned and returned, which means they cancelled a paid SVOD subscription only to renew that same subscription within a six-months period. Again, these figures jump by double digits for Gen Zs and Millennials, who often subscribe to watch specific shows and movies and then cancel when they're done-only to resubscribe to watch a new season or film.
This behavior corresponds with the top reasons for young audiences to subscribe to a streaming service according to Evan Shapiro: Relevant Content (60%), Originals (50%), and Refresh Rate (48%).
So, it's all about the content the SVOD services offer. And this will become even more relevant in the next year as only 7% say they will stay subscribed to all current services, while the rest say they will cut back:
According to the Deloitte study, around half of consumers (47%) say they already have made a change to their entertainment subscriptions because of current economic conditions-like cancelling a service to save money, switching to a free ad-supported version of a service, or bundling services. Around 60% of households are now using a free, ad-supported streaming video service, and roughly 4 in 10 say they watch more ad-supported streaming video than they did a year ago, whether paid or free.
Pyramid of Feeds: Social Media covers Needs Content is King when it comes to acquiring and retaining customers. However, Kevin Westcott, a vice chair who leads the US Technology, Media & Telecommunications practice at Deloitte, said, The race to continue to add customers by commissioning and acquiring really high-cost content will not succeed on its own. He suggested SVOD services should invest in diversifying the content on their platforms, including considering incorporating user-generated short-form video, music, and games. Streamers are under pressure to reinforce their core offerings, but they should also be leveraging gaming and social media, especially considering the behaviors we are seeing in younger generations. To stay competitive, SVOD providers should seriously consider how to engage broader audiences, play across diverse media properties that add value, and advance their ad platforms to better support advertisers.
The report states that watching TV shows and movies at home is no longer the dominant, go-to activity it once was - especially with younger generations that are more evenly dividing their entertainment time across TV shows and movies, user-generated content (UGC) on social media services, and video games. They seek entertainment, connection, immersion and utility. Plus, more than half (54%) of consumers surveyed - and nearly three-quarters of Gen Z and Millennials - said they often watch a TV show or movie on a streaming video service after hearing about it on social media.
Per Evan Shapiro's Pyramid of Feeds, Social Media is the most important feed overall:
Think Global, Stream Local: Rise of Local Content What surprised me the most, though, was that local streamers are ahead of Netflix & Co. in Europe. They can't reach the biggest UGC-platform YouTube, but they leave the global streamers behind.
Local content allows for a more authentic representation of a particular culture, region, or community. As audiences increasingly seek diverse and culturally relevant content, there is a growing demand for locally produced content that reflects their own experiences and perspectives. Furthermore, local content can target niche markets and underserved audiences that may be overlooked by mainstream or international productions. By creating content specifically tailored to these audiences, content creators can tap into passionate fan bases and build loyal followings. Personalization and curation by targeting niche audiences is also one of the reasons for the Rise of FAST Services in recent years.
Both, local and global content will continue to coexist, catering to different preferences and serving various purposes within the evolving landscape of the content industry. But for the moment, it's interesting to see that local European streamers are ahead of global streamers.
Live is Live: Create FOMO Year after year, live sporting events as well as live news coverage completely dominate linear TV ratings and keep the old way of watching TV on life support. The streamers are catching up, though, when it comes to live content: Amazon has been streaming NFL games in the US and the UEFA Champions League in Europe, Netflix had their first live Comedy Special with Chris Rock back in March, and Apple TV just launched its MLS Season Pass add-on with live-streaming soccer.
Live content creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity. Viewers may have FOMO (fear of missing out) regarding unique moments or experiences that are only avai
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
One of my MIPTV 2023 highlights was Evan Shapiro's Mastermind Keynote on the changing media landscape and how producers and studios must change their mindsets to adapt to the new content world we are entering. He said that relevance and freshness are key to streamers' success in the current ecosystem and that he forecasts a great cutting back on SVOD subscriptions as consumers choose to change what they are subscribing to almost every month. What used to be linear-channel changing has become streamer churn, he explained. Now, Deloitte's latest Digital Media Trends report already confirms his prediction that subscription fatigue among consumers is only getting worse.
