How to retain subscribers from major events such as the Olympics

As the dust settles on the Paris Olympic Games there was one gold-star athlete whose performance marked the beginning of a long journey to success.

I’m of course talking about discovery+ which became the UK’s fastest growing streaming service at the beginning of the month. This monumental shift in fortunes for the platform was thanks to its £1bn deal to secure the rights back in 2016. This year the platform had the rights to broadcast 3,800 hours of content, compared to the 250 hours aired on free-to-view channels like the BBC.

The bold investment has clearly paid off, as audiences flocked to the platform to access all events of the international sporting competition - allowing Brits to watch each of the 14 gold medal winning performances in real time and on demand.

But now that they have acquired this newfound audience of sports fanatics how will they retain them? With the Olympics now over and done for another four years, discovery+ will have to find a new way to keep viewers engaged until 2028.

What else is on?

One essential part of the retention strategy must be to highlight the best of the best of their content library. Many viewers will have taken advantage of the seven day free trial, and, in order to view the entire two-week competition, perhaps have paid their first month’s fee to access all areas.

But this window is closing rapidly. New subscribers will be reaching the end of their first month in the next two weeks, and they will be weighing whether to continue their membership post-Olympics. This leaves very little time to get consumers hooked. Our State of Subscriptions report for 2024 found that last year 50% of all free trials resulted in a paid subscription - proving that those first few weeks make all the difference when it comes to creating a long-term customer.

discovery+ has a lots of content that can attract both sport fans and non-sport fans alike. But highlighting the appropriate content to the right audiences is essential. The wealth of data available to platforms about their audience’s viewing habits makes it easier to push the right content to the relevant person.  

And once a person finds the show they can’t live without, they will be enthusiastically renewing their subscriptions to satiate their newest entertainment craving.

A proven niche

discovery+ has proven its prowess in delivering high quality live sporting content and this is not always an easy service to deliver. Small outages or difficulties in accessing live sporting competitions can leave consumers with a sour taste in their mouths, permanently damaging brand reputation - one that Warner Bros. Discovery has managed to avoid.

Doubling down on the proven sporting success of the platform would be a sensible direction. With their Olympics coverage discovery+ now have reams of high quality sporting content with which to recycle for the most avid sports fans. This can even be used to start building buzz for the next games in Los Angeles.

Success in live sport brings a high level of reward for platforms as they can embed themselves at the centre of a major cultural moment. In the future discovery+ could maintain its foothold in live sports and make itself a core part of all live sports viewing in the UK.

Away from the screen

But in the modern streaming world it has become essential to ensure that the value offer of a platform is continually highlighted and presented to consumers and would-be unsubscribers. Offering additional services outside of the world of streaming can sweeten the deal and make services even more essential to your audience.

With its newly acquired sporting audience it would be wise to offer additional sporting offers, taking advantage of the real world sporting experience. Tickets to international competitions offered at discount or with first priority to discovery+ audiences would make it a sport fans’ best companion.

Stamina over speed

With the right strategy a streaming service can build on the strength of its sudden growth in subscribers to meet its next challenge - retention.

The result of an effective retention strategy? Platforms with smaller subscriber bases, like discovery+, will now find themselves in a position to challenge industry leaders like Netflix and Prime Video, especially in the sporting arena.

Before we had considered this a two horse race but with the recent success of new streaming services it seems that the competition has widened. In the future we may see an entirely different streaming landscape than today, where smaller players carve out their own niches in the world of entertainment.

Lina Tonk is CMO at Recurly