Young people cut back on video streaming services

More households in Britain are cancelling video streaming subscriptions due to the rising cost of living, new research suggests.

A total of 1.66 million services were canned in the second quarter of 2022, market research firm Kantar said.

Under-24s were the most likely age group to cancel, the data showed.

More than a third of cancellations were attributed to cutting costs, with people budgeting for higher prices and energy bills.

About 58% of homes in England, Scotland and Wales now have at least one paid streaming service, it said.

It comes after 1.51 million services were cancelled in the first three months of 2022, according to Kantar data.

Younger audiences are turning back to free services such as Tik Tok, BBC iPlayer, Channel 4's All 4 and ITV Hub.

Meanwhile, Netflix teamed up with Microsoft last week to offer a cheaper subscription plan to customers that will show adverts.

The streaming giant said its service will be an "addition" to its existing plans, which do not include adverts but has not yet revealed how much it plans to charge subscribers for the new service.

Netflix announced the move after it reported its first subscriber loss in more than a decade and cut hundreds of jobs earlier this year. Netflix said it expected to have lost two million subscribers in the three months from April to June.

Amazon Prime showed the largest share of new subscriptions, attracting 37.9 per cent which Kantar said was due to its free trial period and free delivery option.

Kantar also said people surveyed had said they were more satisfied with Disney+ than Netflix because of the quality of its shows.