Super Bowl is big draw for Paramount+ signups, data suggests users stick around

Paramount+ added an estimated 3.4 million signups thanks to CBS’s coverage of Super Bowl LVIII, according to Antenna analysis. 

The game, which was carried on CBS in the U.S. and made available to stream via Paramount+ for those without traditional TV service.

CBS wasn’t shy about letting viewers know they could take advantage of the service’s one-week free trial to catch the game, which was likely especially useful to cord-cutters. 

The trial, which is available during non-Super Bowl times as well, was marketed heavily in the time leading up to the 2024 game.

All told, Paramount+ added an estimated 2.3 million free trial memberships during a three-day window. It also managed to get 32% of those, or 1.1 million, to commit to a paid subscription plan (all users taking advantage of a free trial are still required to enter payment information).

Antenna estimates that 21% of the Paramount+ signups were processed through Apple. Those subscribers are not included in this data. 

The lure of NFL games appears to also have an affect on streaming signups outside of the big game.

Peacock, for example, added an estimated 3 million subscribers for its coverage of the AFC Wild Card Game earlier in 2024. Peacock, which started life with a free tier, did not offer a trial trial ahead of the wild card match.

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Convention wisdom suggests that at least some subscribers would simply cancel shortly after watching what they signed up for. 

That remained true for both Paramount+ and Peacock.

For example, Antenna estimated that Paramount+ held on to 35% of the cohort enrolled during the Super Bowl promotion canceled by the end of February 2024. Peacock lost about 29% of its cohort by canceling within a similar timeframe.

However, those figures were both notably kept well below 50%, suggesting that well over half of users who sign up for a streaming service for a single “destination” event remain subscribed for at least one billing period.

Of course, at least some of the subscribers counted in these estimates could have simply forgotten to cancel their subscriptions (given that there’s an entire cottage industry in the U.S. built around helping consumers cancel subscriptions they forgot about), and Antenna did not release cohort data beyond February, which could be a key metric to consider, especially if the drop-off is significantly more than might be expected as the result of normal churn.