US OTT subscriber churn rate reaches 44% in 2021

Parks Associates' recent report, "AI-Enabled Data: Key to Video Service Optimization, recorded a 44% OTT subscriber churn rate among US consumers in 2021. “Video services are seeking ways to optimize the performance of their businesses in as many dimensions as possible,” said Paul Erickson, Senior Analyst, Parks Associates. “Data, insights, and actions enabled by the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can maximize their abilities to compete and thrive in the current high-pressure streaming video landscape.”

Even though the Whitepaper report indicates that nearly 50% of total US consumers pay for an average of four OTT video service subscriptions, a large portion of the group, 37%, plan to cancel one or more of those services due to a lack of new content.  Approximately 26% of respondents admitted to cancelling their OTT services after exhausting all of their streaming preferences, driving platforms to implement various rentention strategies.

Tools such as AI and ML solutions can identify content that would keep subscribers engaged and stave off churn and can even identify behaviors that are predictive of future churn. "Content owners and streaming providers are operating in a highly competitive environment, driven by the multitude of choices available to today’s consumer,” said Mark Moeder, CEO of Symphony MediaAI. “AI and ML-enabled data analysis confer a crucial competitive advantage: the ability to predict, and adapt, to both overarching trends and individual consumer behavior.”

The whitepaper, developed in partnership with Symphony MediaAI, examines the drivers and use cases for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)-enabled data analysis to address consumer trends in the video services market. “The integration of AI-enhanced data is becoming a necessity to be able to compete in a crowded, fiercely competitive video service environment, with numerous competitors vying to capture and retain an increasingly elusive streaming video consumer,” Erickson said.