41% of US consumers cancelled a streaming service in the past six months, yet 22% cancelled and resubscribed to the same service inside that same window. Churn in 2026 is not a leak to be plugged so much as a rhythm the industry has learned to price around: the weighted average monthly churn rate across premium SVOD steadied at 4.6%, category subscriber growth halved to 7%, and roughly a third of all gross additions now come from people returning to services they previously quit. Meanwhile 61% of subscribers say a USD 5 increase would make them cancel their favourite service. The figures below come from Antenna’s subscription panel, Deloitte’s 2026 Digital Media Trends survey, and Nielsen’s Gauge measurement.
TL;DR
- Weighted average premium SVOD churn settled at 4.6% (Antenna, Q1 2026)
- 41% of consumers cancelled an SVOD service in the past six months (Deloitte, 2026)
- 22% cancelled and resubscribed to the same service within six months (Deloitte, 2026)
- Category subscriber growth fell to 7% in 2025, from 12% in 2024 (Antenna)
- Gross additions growth also fell to 7%, down 4 points year over year (Antenna)
- Nearly one in four streaming consumers qualified as serial churners at end-2023 (Antenna)
- Serial churners drove roughly one-third of sign-ups, versus about 10% in 2019 (Antenna)
- Around 57 million resubscriptions equalled 34% of gross additions in a twelve-month window (Antenna)
- 90% of US households hold a paid SVOD service, averaging four services (Deloitte, 2026)
- Average household streaming spend is USD 69 per month, flat year over year (Deloitte, 2026)
- 61% would cancel their favourite service over a USD 5 price increase (Deloitte, 2026)
- 68% of subscribers now have at least one ad-supported tier, up from 46% in 2024 (Deloitte, 2026)
- Streaming reached a record 46.6% of ad-supported TV viewing in Q1 2026 (Nielsen)
1. The Headline Churn Rate
The number that matters is not the level but the variance, and 2026 is the first year in a while where the variance collapsed. Premium SVOD weighted average churn held at 4.6%, and the category posted flat or lower churn in 7 of 11 months between September 2024 and August 2025, against only 2 of the previous 21 months. A market where monthly churn is predictable is a market where price increases can be modelled, which is precisely what every major service then did.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Weighted average monthly churn rate | 4.6% | Antenna, Q1 2026 |
| Months with flat or lower churn, Sept 2024 to Aug 2025 | 7 of 11 | Antenna |
| Comparable figure, previous 21 months | 2 of 21 | Antenna |
| Services with more stable churn in 2025 versus 2023 | 7 of 9 | Antenna |
| Six-month consumer cancellation rate | 41% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Six-month cancel-and-return rate | 22% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Deloitte survey sample | 3,575 US consumers aged 14+ | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Deloitte field dates | October to November 2025 | Deloitte, 2026 |
Antenna’s 4.6% is a monthly panel measurement of transactions; Deloitte’s 41% is a six-month self-reported behaviour. They are not the same metric and should not be compared directly. Sources: Antenna Q1 2026 State of Subscriptions and Deloitte 2026 Digital Media Trends.
2. Growth Slows to Single Digits
Stable churn arrived at the same moment growth stopped, and the two facts are connected. Total premium SVOD subscribers grew 7% in 2025, down from 12% in 2024, with gross additions growth falling by 4 points to the same 7%. Once acquisition slows, the arithmetic of a subscription business inverts: retaining an existing account and raising its price becomes a larger earnings lever than winning a new one.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Total subscriber growth, 2025 | 7% | Antenna |
| Total subscriber growth, 2024 | 12% | Antenna |
| Gross additions growth, 2025 | 7% | Antenna |
| Change in gross additions growth | down 4 points YoY | Antenna |
| Q4 2025 share of annual gross adds | 31% | Antenna |
| Q4 2025 share of annual net adds | 57% | Antenna |
| Primary Q4 drivers cited | Black Friday promotions and hit titles | Antenna |
| Roku US SVOD subscriptions, May 2026 | 24.4 million, a 4.5% share | Antenna |
The Q4 concentration is the most operationally useful number here: more than half of a full year’s net additions landed in a single promotional quarter, which tells you what the acquisition machine actually runs on. Source: Antenna Q1 2026 State of Subscriptions.
3. Serial Churners and the Resubscribe Loop
The industry spent years treating cancellation as failure before the data suggested it is closer to a usage pattern. Roughly 57 million resubscriptions in a twelve-month window equalled 34% of all gross additions, all of them people rejoining a service they had cancelled within the prior year. Antenna’s serial churner cohort, defined as consumers cancelling three or more services in two years, reached nearly one in four streaming consumers by the end of 2023, growing 42% year over year.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Serial churner definition | 3 or more cancellations in 2 years | Antenna |
| Share of streaming consumers, end-2023 | nearly 1 in 4 | Antenna |
| Year-over-year growth in that cohort | 42% | Antenna |
| Share of sign-ups from serial churners | approx. one-third | Antenna |
| Comparable share in 2019 | approx. 10% | Antenna |
| Resubscriptions, Sept 2023 to Aug 2024 | approx. 57 million | Antenna |
| Resubscriptions as share of gross adds | 34% | Antenna |
| Weighted average resubscribe rate, 2023 | 30.1% | Antenna |
These cohort figures are the most recent Antenna has published in detail and date to 2023 and 2024, so treat the levels as most recent available rather than current. The direction has not reversed in later reporting. Sources: Antenna on serial churners and Antenna’s case for rethinking churn.
4. Price Sensitivity Is the Binding Constraint
Every service raised prices in 2025 and 2026, and the survey data suggests they are close to the limit. 61% of consumers say they would cancel their favourite service over a USD 5 monthly increase, and 73% report frustration at continued price rises, yet average household spend held flat at USD 69 per month. Flat spend against rising prices is not consumer tolerance, it is substitution: households dropped or downgraded services to hold the total steady.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Would cancel favourite service over USD 5 increase | 61% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Frustrated by continued price increases | 73% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Average monthly household streaming spend | USD 69 | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Change in that spend year over year | unchanged | Deloitte, 2026 |
| US households with a paid SVOD service | 90% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Average services per subscribing household | four | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Implied average spend per service | approx. USD 17 per month | Derived from Deloitte figures |
The derived row is arithmetic on Deloitte’s two reported averages and is not itself a survey finding. Service-level pricing context sits in our Disney+ statistics and Netflix statistics. Source: Deloitte 2026 Digital Media Trends.
5. The Ad Tier as a Churn Valve
Advertising tiers turned out to be the mechanism that let households absorb price increases without cancelling outright. 68% of SVOD subscribers now hold at least one ad-supported plan, up from 46% in 2024, a 22-point shift in two years. Antenna’s segmentation is sharper: consumers deliberately mixing ad-free and ad-supported plans across their stack are 40% of the category, and together with those on ad tiers only they account for 72%.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Subscribers with at least one ad-supported tier | 68% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Same figure in 2024 | 46% | Deloitte |
| Change over two years | up 22 points | Derived from Deloitte figures |
| Ad Managers, mixing plan types | 40% of premium SVOD individuals | Antenna |
| Ad Takers, ad-supported only | 32% | Antenna |
| Combined ad-exposed share | 72% | Antenna |
| Streaming share of ad-supported TV, Q1 2026 | 46.6%, a record | Nielsen |
| Ad-supported share of all TV viewing, Q1 2026 | 73% | Nielsen |
The ad tier is best read as a downgrade path that keeps an account alive rather than a growth product, which is why the churn rate stabilised in the same period ad-tier adoption jumped. Source: Nielsen Q1 2026 Ad Supported Gauge.
6. What Retention Looks Like Instead
Deloitte’s 2026 edition reframed retention around fandom rather than catalogue size, and the spending gap is large enough to take seriously. Consumers who identify as fans of something spend USD 71 per month against USD 56 for non-fans, a 27% difference, and watch 51 minutes more per day. Discovery has moved with them: 52% of fans say social platforms are their primary route to new content, rising to 73% among Gen Z.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Consumers identifying as fans of something | approx. 80% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Monthly spend, fans | USD 71 | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Monthly spend, non-fans | USD 56 | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Spending difference | 27% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Additional daily viewing by fans | 51 minutes, or 16% more | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Fans engaging across multiple platforms | 55%, rising to approx. 70% for Gen Z and Millennials | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Fans citing social platforms as primary discovery | 52%, rising to 73% for Gen Z | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Would accept clearly labelled AI-created content | approx. 40% | Deloitte, 2026 |
| Say better AI recommendations would increase usage | 22% | Deloitte, 2026 |
The discovery finding is the one with operational consequences: if more than half of engaged viewers find shows on social platforms rather than inside the app, in-app recommendation improvements have a ceiling. Category context sits in our video streaming statistics. Source: Deloitte 2026 Digital Media Trends.
Summary: Streaming Churn by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Weighted average premium SVOD churn | 4.6% | Antenna |
| Months with flat or lower churn, Sept 2024 to Aug 2025 | 7 of 11 | Antenna |
| Services with more stable churn versus 2023 | 7 of 9 | Antenna |
| Subscriber growth, 2025 | 7% | Antenna |
| Subscriber growth, 2024 | 12% | Antenna |
| Gross additions growth change | down 4 points | Antenna |
| Q4 2025 share of annual net adds | 57% | Antenna |
| Serial churners, end-2023 | nearly 1 in 4 consumers | Antenna |
| Growth in serial churner cohort | 42% YoY | Antenna |
| Serial churner share of sign-ups | approx. one-third | Antenna |
| Resubscriptions in a twelve-month window | approx. 57 million | Antenna |
| Resubscriptions as share of gross adds | 34% | Antenna |
| Weighted average resubscribe rate, 2023 | 30.1% | Antenna |
| Six-month cancellation rate | 41% | Deloitte |
| Six-month cancel-and-return rate | 22% | Deloitte |
| US households with paid SVOD | 90% | Deloitte |
| Average services per household | four | Deloitte |
| Average monthly household spend | USD 69 | Deloitte |
| Would cancel over a USD 5 increase | 61% | Deloitte |
| Subscribers with an ad-supported tier | 68% | Deloitte |
| Ad-exposed share of premium SVOD | 72% | Antenna |
| Streaming share of ad-supported TV, Q1 2026 | 46.6% | Nielsen |
Methodology and Sources
- Churn rates, gross and net addition growth, serial churner cohorts, resubscribe rates, and ad-plan segmentation come from Antenna’s subscription transaction panel, primarily the Q1 2026 State of Subscriptions report covering 2025 (Antenna) plus its published analyses of serial churners (Antenna, Antenna) and churn management (Antenna). Independent coverage of the serial churner data was checked against Antenna’s own figures (StreamTV Insider).
- Household penetration, service counts, spending, cancellation behaviour, price sensitivity, ad-tier adoption, and fandom data come from Deloitte’s 2026 Digital Media Trends, a survey of 3,575 US consumers aged 14 and over fielded October to November 2025 (press release, full report).
- Viewing-share figures come from Nielsen’s Q1 2026 Ad Supported Gauge, released June 23, 2026 (Nielsen) and the May 2026 Gauge reports (Nielsen).
- Data watch: Antenna’s serial churner and resubscribe figures are the most detailed the firm has published but date to 2023 and 2024 windows, so they are flagged as most recent available rather than current. Antenna measures observed transactions from a US panel; Deloitte measures self-reported behaviour from a US survey; the two produce different churn numbers by construction and should not be averaged. Every figure here is United States only, and none of it maps cleanly onto international markets where bundling through telecom carriers changes cancellation mechanics. Rows marked as derived are arithmetic on reported figures, not published metrics.
- Last updated: July 31, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly as Antenna publishes new State of Subscriptions data and Nielsen releases Gauge reports.