UPDATE: You should always read the fine print on subscription medication ... and the same holds true for research reports from Antenna. Next TV received an eviscerating email Friday morning, detailing numerous instances of inaccuracy in our Tuesday take on the company's latest "State of Subscriptions" report. There was some context and nuance that we apparently missed. We did our best to make some adjustments for clarity and accuracy here. Correction notes are in italics:
Nearly 66% of users who signed up for Bally Sports Plus from October 2022 through March 2023 canceled their subscription after six months, according to new research published by Antenna.
And at its peak, the research company said, the regional sports network's $20-a-month direct-to-consumer streaming service had only around 97,000 subscribers nationally signed up directly through iTunes, Google Play and Roku apps. (Antenna noted that its tally doesn't include customers obtained via Bally Sports' own channels. It does not account for the entirety of the subscriber base.)
As Bally Sports’s parent company, Diamond Sports Group, fights for survival in a Texas bankruptcy court, the numbers -- complete sampling or no -- help explain why its DTC service, launched in September 2022, hasn't come close to offsetting rapid decay of Diamond's linear platforms.
Antenna's latest report, “State of Subscriptions: Sports,” published Tuesday, had a few other nuggets in it.
Among them: "Through the end of September, Antenna data indicates that 62% of "NFL Sunday Ticket" sign-ups came via YouTube TV subscribers.
Google/Alphabet doesn't often disclose specific YouTube TV subscriber numbers, but Antenna estimates the current base to be 7.3 million users. The research company also estimates that 1.3 million "NFL Sunday Ticket" customers signed up for the out-of-market games package through the broader YouTube ecosystem.
"This means that approximately 11% of YouTube TV subscribers have access to NFL Sunday Ticket," Antenna added.
