Paramount +, the latest participant in the streaming wars, launches today promising a mix of classic TV shows and movies, early access to some Hollywood blockbusters, and some recharging of things you did not know, but you want to start again: Welcome back, Frasier Crane.
But in some ways, the things that ViacomCBS ‘new service offers are less important than the timing of its introduction. This comes after every other major media company has launched its own streaming service. Which means Paramount + is entering a very tight market.
And that probably means that ViacomCBS is not just trying to get someone to pay $ 10 a month for Paramount + – it’s probably also that they’d have to drop something else. Antenna, a subscription startup for subscriptions, says U.S. consumers subscribed to just 1.5 streaming services in January 2021.
Two years ago, when streaming services almost meant Netflix and Hulu, it was 1.25. Which means that even though we’ve recently seen a number of services debut, most people still do not pay for it – and even if they take out their credit card to sign up, they’ll probably not pay for sampling anymore.
Antenna, which says it uses data used from online payment services to determine what people are spending money on, has clearly outlined the challenge facing ViacomCBS in the datasets below. But the easiest way to sum it up might be: (just about) everyone already has Netflix.
For example, this graph tells us that 75 percent of the people Netflix recently acquired in the first half of 2020 still pay for the service – a higher survival rate than all of its main competitors for streaming. Meanwhile, only 34 percent of the new 2020 TV subscribers for Apple still pay for the service. (Antenna data does not include streamers who get free services from promotions like Disney’s Verizon bundle, or the free Apple TV + trial that Apple offers to customers who buy Apple hardware, such as new iPhones.)
And yes, some people – maybe the people reading this article – actually subscribe to many different TV services. But this is a very small minority.
Meanwhile, Netflix customers are less likely to pay for anything other than other streaming subscribers – which is likely to have something to do with the fact that (almost) everyone has Netflix. This is the first starter pack: you get it first and then think about adding something else.
The good news for ViacomCBS is that people who are subscribed to its existing services – CBS All Access, which is being redesigned in Paramount + and Showtime – are increasingly inclined to subscribe to something else as well.