Streaming services are now a cost of living casualty

Following a massive boom during the pandemic era and major expansion of platforms in 2022, the next year could be rough for streaming services.

That’s according to new research suggesting the days of most Brits subscribing to multiple platforms are coming to an end, while some are giving up on streaming altogether as cost of living fears mount.

According to Kantar Worldpanel research published in the Guardian, almost a million fewer British households (937,000) subscribed to at least one streaming service last month, compared to January 2022.

“One million households have stopped streaming,” said Dominic Sunnebo, the global insight director at Kantar said. “The reason people are cancelling is the need to save money. The most recent quarter saw two of the most anticipated releases of the year, they ranked as the top two most enjoyed pieces of subscription video-on-demand content during the period, and yet we still saw a continuation of the negative trend of the market getting smaller.”

The research says 16 million UK homes have at least one streaming service, but five million homes each have Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+, which are considered to be the three most popular. However, it stands to reason that energy costs, rising grocery bills, and now soaring interest rates have encouraged Brits to trim non-essential expenditure. Streaming services are certainly expendable.

The relatively muted reception for the biggest shows – like Amazon Prime’s big hit The Rings of Power and NOW’s House of the Dragon – certainly won’t help, while there’s continued doubts over the quality of Netflix’s original streaming line-up. Even Disney Plus has started to cool off with its Marvel and Star Wars originals, after leaping out of the gates.

Have you started to cut back on streaming services, due to the rising cost of everything else? Or have you just got bored of some and decided to rotate them out?