More bad news for Netflix – more British households are cancelling video-streaming services due to the cost-of-living crisis, according to new research. And, to make things worse, the highly sought-after young market are the most likely to cancel.
More than three million UK households have cancelled their streaming service already this year, according to research firm Kantar (the BBC reports). That includes 1.6 million between April and June, up from 1.51 million in the first three months of the year.
Under-24s were the most likely to cancel. More than a third of all cancellations were attributed to cutting costs at a time when everything from petrol, energy bills and food are all becoming more expensive.
According to the research, younger people – who are highly sought after by businesses due to their lifetime spending potential – are instead turning to free services such as TikTok and BBC iPlayer.
About 58 per cent of UK households have at least one video-streaming service.
Netflix was the first of the big boys to experience what business people call 'headwinds' (falling demand, to the rest of us). It recently lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade, dropping 200,000 in a period in which it was forecast to gain two million. It estimates it will lose a further two million for the period of April to June.
In response, it will launch a cheaper, ad-supported tier (after saying for years it wouldn't 'do' ads). It hopes this will stem the flow of deserters, while also bringing in revenue from advertisers.
Will it be enough? And are Disney Plus, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ better placed to weather the storm? We will find out soon enough...
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