As countries around the world emerge from lockdowns, it appears the streaming service boom is over too.
During the first three months of this year, more than 1.5 million British households cancelled accounts for services such as Disney+, Now, and Apple TV+, according to market research group Kantar.
More than half of people cancelled to save money.
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Melbourne’s Victoria University senior lecturer in screen media Marc C Scott tells Karyn Hay the emergence from lockdowns means households are spending time out and about rather than in front of the screen.
The other factor to consider in these figures was that most streaming services offered free trials.
“With Apple, most of the Apple products we’re buying now also give access to their streaming services free [for three months]. So, it’s a case of how many people are cancelling because they had it free … or how many have actually paid for it and then cancelled?”
The research found there was a clear difference in the drop of subscribers outside of Netflix and Amazon, with these two being the last to go when households are forced to prioritise spending.
Scott believes that may have something to do with subscribers having to hold on as more content is being released on a weekly basis - a shift from the initial 'binge series' model.
“Previously you could just jump, binge it for a couple of weeks, cancel your subscription and then move onto the next service.
“It sort of started with just a couple of programmes with that happening, but now it seems to be more and more and it’s just a way of hanging on to your subscribers.
“I think the other thing we’re going to see now is much more thought about release date for content right across the calendar, where previously that wasn’t necessarily the thing, because there are so many streaming services … so it’s another ploy to hang on to people and keep the money coming through.”
Streaming services have also given another perspective on what it means to have local content, he says.
“What we’re starting to see now with streaming services is we can now see local content for example Australian and New Zealand, but for a global audience and we’re seeing that with Squid Games – Korean content that would never be broadcast on free to air television in Australia but it has an Australian following now.”
Kantar's research also found Netflix subscribers' attitudes towards advertising are softening in Great Britain as services seek revenue growth.
Scott says the advertising model is one we may start to see on these platforms, including in New Zealand and Australia.
“That could be a couple of ways, it could be there’s advertising where you don’t pay anything but you’re gonna have ads or you pay a bit and you won’t have ads, or we might see some that will give it to you slightly cheaper and the reason for that will be you’ve got ads.”
Or they may adopt a similar approach to Amazon, a platform which offers both shopping content and a streaming service and is seeking to merge them so that viewers can instantly click through to buy related products, he says.
Disney+ is rumoured to be releasing an ad-based model later this year.
