According to recent data from Kantar – a research and analytics company – the SVOD market in the UK declined by 488,000 households in Q2 2022, with over 1.66 million SVOD subscriptions cancelled during this period. These figures suggest that UK SVOD penetration fell two percentage points quarter-on-quarter, from 58% to 56%. This follows a fall of 215,000 UK SVOD households in the first quarter of the year.
The company says the decline is driven in “almost equal part by a decrease in households taking out new subscriptions and an increase in those cancelling services.”
38% of those cancelling services cited “wanting to save money” as their main reason, up significantly from the same period last year, when only 24% cited cost-saving as their main reason. Despite this, the proportion of consumers citing cost-saving fell by two percentage points quarter-on-quarter.
Kantar also revealed that the largest drop in penetration is seen in the youngest households, with under 24s seeing SVOD penetration decline by 2.6 percentage points. For 55-64 year olds, SVOD market decline was only 0.5 percentage points quarter-on-quarter.
Dominic Sunnebo, Global Insight Director, Kantar, Worldpanel Division, said: “In Q2, we observed how British consumers continued to cancel subscriptions across the board. In terms of the TV streaming market, the decline in subscriptions is being driven largely by younger ages. Although, it is worth noting that this group often have a wider variety of entertainment sources, including BBC iPlayer and free services such as TikTok, suggesting that this age is still interested in viewing TV streaming, just for a lower cost.”
