Netflix de-throned for first time ever by new rival streaming package
Netflix has officially lost its top spot as a rival streaming bundle has outperformed it for the first time.
In July 2024, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery teamed up to launch a streaming bundle that includes Disney+, Hulu and Max - and now, it's outperformed Netflix in retention.
According to media analytics firm Antenna, about 80% of subscribers kept the bundle after three months, compared to 74% for Netflix over the same period.
For years, Netflix has topped the boards with customer loyalty.
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Even after the streaming giant banned password sharing in 2023 - despite backlash and threats to cancel - the company’s profits still jumped.
In the first three months of 2024, it reported 9.3 million new customers and a profit jump to more than $2.3bn (£1.85bn), which it partly thanks to the crackdown.
Now, with the new Disney/Hulu/Max bundle, customers can save around 43% compared to subscribing to each service separately.
The package costs $16.99 per month with ads or $29.99 without them. In it, subscribers can watch hit shows like the gritty cooking drama The Bear or comedy-drama The White Lotus.
Interestingly, the Disney+/Hulu/Max bundle is doing even better than Disney’s other package deals, like its Duo plan (Disney+ and Hulu) or the Trio bundle (which includes ESPN+). By the end of December, the new bundle had around 2.2 million paying subscribers, per Antenna.
Subscriber retention is one of the biggest challenges for streaming services, as many people sign up just for a free trial or to watch a specific show before cancelling. In fact, Antenna reported that there are nearly twice as many of these 'casual subscribers' as long-term users.
"Warner and Disney, to some degree, have built their entire business around the cable bundle, so they're very comfortable with bundling," Antenna's strategy director Brendan Brady explained. "We're starting, increasingly, to see it come back."
Elsewhere, Fox announced its decision to launch a new streaming service by the end of this year.
Whilst Fox has largely kept out of the streaming rivalry, the new direct-to-consumer service could be a strong contender to the likes of Hulu and Netflix.
However, CEO Lachlan Murdoch made it clear that Fox doesn’t intend to lure traditional cable customers into streaming.
The app will package its existing sports and news content without adding 'any exclusive rights costs or additional incremental rights costs,' Murdoch said.