Every January, like clockwork, the ghosts of the Christmas just past come calling. New Year churn, as consumers go into post-festive belt-tightening, has become an annual headache for content streaming platforms.
Data shows that cancellations do spike in January, but churn isn’t written in the stars. Streaming platforms have a range of tactics available to them to get stickier with subscribers. More broadly, streaming platforms have adapted significantly in recent years with the introduction of ad-supported tiers and shifts in content production and licensing strategies.
When it comes to improving retention in the New Year, streaming platforms can look beyond banner ads and algorithm tweaks to the Smart TVs that anchor everyone’s living rooms today. The key lies in partnerships that deliver the kind of user experience viewers crave – and keeps them coming back for more seamless entertainment.
The ‘doom-stream’ phenomenon driving subscription churn
Cost is always a primary consideration for consumers when cutting back on anything, and streaming subscriptions are no different. But there’s another, quieter force dragging down engagement and chipping away at loyalty: content paralysis.
Last year, TiVo conducted multi-market consumer research which put a number on this: customers are losing nearly five full days a year just scrolling for something to watch, caught in a phenomenon that could be dubbed “doom-streaming”. The more time people spend lost in labyrinthine menus and streams of irrelevant recommendations, the closer they get to questioning why they’re paying for another streaming platform they barely touch.
But that’s not all. Nearly half of smart TV users admit to paying for access to content they already had access to on another platform, simply because what they had already paid for wasn’t clearly signposted.
These are simmering frustrations that come to front of mind when consumers start thinking about cancelling their subscriptions, and it’s here – with the user experience – that streaming platforms should start as they look to increase stickiness ahead of the New Year season of churn.
From buried app icon to Smart TV staple
Streaming platforms, it’s time to play offense in the living room. As TiVo’s research proves, the Operating System (OS) is where the battle for viewing hearts, minds, and retention is actually fought. “Ease of use” and “content discovery” rate just as high among Smart TV buyers as hardware specs themselves, outranking even brand loyalty for the majority of viewers. Increasingly, the streaming platforms embedding their experience into the TV OS, surfacing personalised recommendations, exclusive bundles, and seamless onboarding, are the ones getting watched, not just subscribed to.
Forget burying your app icon in a list of 40. By partnering closely with the right Smart TV OS, streaming platforms can make their brands present from setup, not just download – think onboarding journeys, free trial offers tied to device activation, or unique recommendation rails the moment the TV boots. When the journey from couch to content is genuinely seamless, streaming platforms become more than “just another app” – they become an irreplaceable default.
The race for relevance
Scroll fatigue is the result of algorithmic irrelevance. More than a third of viewers report feeling like their TVs don’t know them at all: irrelevant recommendations, no personal touch, no family-specific picks, just generic homepages and categories.
Data-rich integrations with OS providers and local content help provide the kind of personal touch viewers feel is lacking from Smart TV operating systems right now. Local hero content is particularly important, with three quarters of viewers still saying that regional programming is a key part of their streaming mix. Perhaps surprisingly, the youngest, most valuable customers are the ones most frustrated when their local favourites are buried or absent.
For streaming platforms, the way to tie in relevant recommendations and local content is by collaborating with a Smart TV operating system provider, who can offer their subscribers:
- Unified search that consolidates content across multiple services into a single, user-friendly interface.
- Personalised recommendations that leverage AI-driven insights to surface relevant content.
- Universal watchlists that allow users to keep track of their favourite shows and movies in one place.
Christmas is fast approaching, and before we know it the festive season will be over for another year – but streaming platforms needn’t look to the New Year with dread. By looking to the Smart TV as the heart of the modern living, and the OS as the gateway to great viewing experiences, streaming execs can make their platforms part of the fabric of daily life and thrive when their competitors are ruing another round of New Year churn.
*Unless otherwise sourced, all stats from research commissioned by Xperi Tivo and conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 12,034 consumers aged 18+ who own a smart TV across the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The data was collected between 31.07.2024 – 05.08.2024.
