Research from VoD market intelligence tool, ScreenThink from MTM, the strategy and insights company, reveals a significant shift in consumer behaviour, with 63 per cent of UK SVoD users saying they’re currently ‘subscription cycling’ each month or open to doing so. This is the practice of dipping in and out of different services to follow specific shows or chase the best deal. 

The 63 per cent comprises:

• 21 per cent currently subscription cycling – which is the highest ever recorded by ScreenThink from MTM, with the number of respondents quadrupling in the last three years.
• A further 42 per cent who are open to subscription cycling in the future, which has also increased significantly in the last three years.

This trend highlights a fundamental change in how people perceive and manage their entertainment subscriptions and a more volatile chapter in video streaming. Additionally, the report revealed that, while overall access to paid streaming services has hit a new peak of 67 per cent of the UK online population, this growth is precarious, with fragile and increasingly transactional relationships between viewers and platforms becoming the norm. Streaming services are competing harder for new subscribers alongside a renewed focus on retention marketing and bundle deals with telco services such as Sky TV. In this new age, understanding the human motivations behind the numbers is now more critical than ever.

Deal-savvy consumers drive the great ‘subscription shuffle’

What’s fuelling this surge in churn? It’s – in part – a logical consumer response to a market saturated with promotions. The data shows that more than 55 per cent of all SVoD subscriptions are now purchased via a special offer or bundle, and it is precisely these deal-driven users who are the most likely to churn in the future — nearly twice as likely, in fact, compared to those paying the standard price (73 per cent vs 41 per cent). Deal-driven subscribers are more comfortable with moving on, once they’ve used the service through a promotional period.

Across subscription services in this and other verticals, MTM also tends to see an effect of introductory discounts or bundling such that customers don’t always fully judge the value of the new service they’ve subscribed to, at the time of sign-up: they figure they’ll decide later on, when the full price kicks in, whether they really intend to become a fully paying customer.

Given all this, it seems the ubiquity of deals and special offers has trained consumers to see subscriptions not as long-term commitments, but as flexible, short-term assets.  The psychological link between deals and churn is undeniable.

The power and paradox of the bundle

Prime Video offers its customers additional value within the wider Amazon Prime offering. Unique among paid-for streaming services, Prime Video is part of a broader strategy that encompasses both a retail leg and a device leg, all three working to mutually reinforce each others’ value.

So much so, that the research found that one in three Prime Video subscribers would cancel the service if it was unbundled from their Amazon Prime membership. Even among the two-thirds who claim they’d stay, their perception of its value is telling: two in five would only be willing to pay £5 or less per month. This highlights the value subscribers place on the wider offering from Amazon, making it harder for services offering a ‘content-only’ approach to compete.

Netflix’s price hikes test the limits of loyalty

As the cost of a service rises, so does the consumer motivation to find a workaround. For the first time in three years, the proportion of Netflix users paying for their own account has fallen, dropping from 76 per cent to 72 per cent. In its place, ScreenThink’s data shows what might be the beginning of a resurgence in the very behaviour Netflix spent years trying to clamp down on: password sharing has crept up from 6 per cent to 8 per cent of Netflix users.

Strategically speaking, these figures speak to the advantage held by scale operators such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ which can take the hit of losing a few customers as they have the largest base and are financially insulated.

Increased cycling behaviour also highlights the need for catalogue content to run alongside big ticket titles: audiences have more reason to stay when they can access favourites such as Friends and Suits as well as the zeitgeist hits such as Adolescence and K-Pop Demon Hunters.   

Smaller operators will face increasing challenges as cycling behaviour develops, with respect to how they monetise niche audiences (Paramount+, Hayu, Discovery+) with subscale D2C offers, compared to license fees from the larger operators.

Philippe Epailly, Director at MTM, commented: “We’ve moved from the ‘attention economy’ to the ‘intention economy’. Simply grabbing eyeballs is no longer enough. Platforms must now understand the shifting intentions of far more discerning and deliberate viewers who are the curators of their own media ecosystems. The core challenge has pivoted from acquisition to earning loyalty, moment by moment. It’s no longer about a single sign-up decision, but a customer’s continuous, rolling re-evaluation of value in a world of infinite choice. The platforms that thrive will be those that look beyond the content slate and truly get to grips with the behavioural science of retention, redefining how value is delivered and sustained. Pricing, packaging and user experience must all be re-examined as subscriber loyalty becomes the most valuable and fragile currency of all.”

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Categories: Consumer Behaviour, Headline, Premium, Research, VOD

Tags: Amazon, mtm, netflix, svod, UK