The ongoing shift in stacking, or the average number of video streaming services per household, highlights a change in US consumer spending habits and a declining sense of value for money in the streaming market. With average paid subscriptions dropping to 4.06 from a Q1’25 peak of 4.2, consumers appear to be reassessing their digital spending. Cost savings remain the number one reason for canceling services, but a growing driver of churn in Q3’25 is “not regularly using the subscription.” This shows that consumers are increasingly examining which services they actually use and cutting the ones they do not, moving away from the past tendency to keep a subscription even with minimal use.
Among weekly non-users, disuse is increasingly tied to a perception that there is not enough new TV content and that it is difficult to find something to watch. This leads to low engagement and, eventually, churn. It also affects how viewers judge value. Only 30% of paid subscriptions have users who are satisfied with the value for money, down from 31% in Q3’24, continuing a slow but steady decline each quarter.
Prime Video stands out in this area, with 35% of subscribers satisfied with value for money. Services like HBO Max and Disney+ fall behind at 27% and 28% respectively. This reveals significant room to improve value perception, as more than two thirds of streamers are not satisfied with the value they receive.
Taken together, these findings suggest that streaming providers should treat the ease of discovering content as the central pillar of the user experience. Once viewers feel there is not enough relevant or varied content for their needs, the path from disengagement to churn becomes clear.
Apple TV Success Case Study
Amidst the US streaming market contraction, Apple TV stands out as the only SVOD (ad-free) service to achieve significant subscriber growth in Q3’25. Apple TV accounted for 9% of all new paid subscriptions during the quarter, making it the fourth largest subscription service among all new subscriptions in the quarter. This growth means Apple TV now has 24% market share of all paid streaming subscriptions, an increase from 22% in Q3’24 and 18% in Q3’23.
Specific content is still the top driver of acquisition for Apple TV, accounting for 37% of all new subscriptions in the quarter versus 29% of all new paid subscriptions. But more importantly, Apple TV has successfully diversified its content resulting in the variety of TV series, variety of live streaming channels, and value for money increasingly driving sign up to Apple TV over the last year. Just from Q2’25-Q3’25, Apple TV saw an increase in sign-ups driven by variety of TV series (+24%), interface ease of use (+84%), watching without ads (+53%), brand affinity (+92%), and live events (+86%). The only other streaming service making similar improvements to diversifying its sign-up drivers is Peacock.
Apple TV still slightly under-indexes on satisfaction with value for money (24%), but satisfaction grew by 1% point QoQ while the category was flat. This demonstrates that the investments Apple TV has made to its content and user experience are paying off in the eyes of the consumer and slowly making Apple TV a more valuable subscription even as streamers are cutting back on their streaming spend.
These findings highlight the importance of closely tracking shifts in audience satisfaction and engagement, and responding quickly to emerging friction points, even as specific titles continue to stimulate growth. Through its Entertainment on Demand service, Worldpanel supports companies in understanding market shifts and acting on emerging opportunities.
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