A new survey from DirecTV
Advertising finds 22% of U.S. adults saying they’ve dropped at least one paid ad-supported or ad-free streaming service in the past three months.
The nationally representative survey was
conducted by market research platform Suzy among 1,000 Americans 18 to 65 on June 3.
Asked to rank the top three reasons for dropping a service, the three that emerged were all related
to cost (above).
More than a third (35%) said they weren’t spending enough time with the service to justify the cost, 30% that they needed to cut back on their entertainment
expenses, and 25% that the service raised its price.
But only slightly fewer said that there was not enough content on the service (24%).
Other common reasons: Finishing watching
the show/movie that was the reason they signed up (22%), wanted to sign up for another service instead (21%), and didn’t enjoy the content on the service (20%).
In what appears to
be good news for advertisers on ad-supported streamers, just 15% said there were too many ads, and just 10% said the ads weren’t relevant to them.
Asked about the top three reasons
they would consider resubscribing, a price decrease or promotion was No. 1, followed by new programming they want to watch, and a new season of the show or sequel to the movie that caused them to sign
up for the service.
Most respondents reported having access to at least one streaming video service via a promotional offer or free trial, and said that the decision about whether to keep those once the deal expires
is highly dependent on how much time they spend with the services.
The survey by DirectTV — which operates both satellite and virtual MVPD services — found that MVPDs (satellite
and cable services) tend to see higher usage frequency than subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services.
The company cited Nielsen data from May showing that viewers 25 to 54 spent twice as
much time with DirecTV streaming services each week than they did with Netflix, on average.