Discovery+ wins gold in UK streaming for Paris Olympics

Discovery+ has rapidly emerged as the UK’s fastest-growing paid streaming service. The near-£1bn investment by Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) to secure the rights for the Olympics appears to be yielding significant results.

Six years ago, WBD, which operates Discovery+ in the UK and also the Max streaming service throughout Europe, struck a €1.3bn (£1.1bn) pan-European deal with the International Olympic Committee. This agreement marked a shift, requiring viewers to pay for a TV or streaming subscription to access all Olympic events for the first time.

Despite UK regulations mandating substantial live coverage of the Olympics be made available by a free-to-air broadcaster, the new model faced criticism. Viewers of the Tokyo 2021 Olympics expressed frustration over the BBC’s sub-licensing deal with Discovery, which drastically reduced the previously extensive coverage. For the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympics, the BBC plans to broadcast only 250 hours of live TV and a maximum of two live events simultaneously.

Nevertheless, viewers seem to have adjusted to the new landscape. Discovery+’s subscriber growth surged past all rival services in the second quarter, ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics. According to Kantar’s latest Entertainment on Demand report, Discovery+ is outshining competitors like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV+.

“We are very much hitting our straps,” said Andrew Georgiou, head of WBD’s European sports business. “We have just renewed our Olympics partnership to Brisbane 2032, which reflects the success of our initial cycle. It has only grown stronger. We’re satisfied with our investment in the Olympics and our ongoing partnership with the BBC.”

For the Paris 2024 Games, WBD is offering 350 hours of live TV across Europe and a total of 3,800 hours of coverage, an increase of 300 hours compared with Tokyo. This includes two Eurosport channels, seven pop-up TV channels, and more than 55 streaming feeds covering all events.

The convenient time zone of the Paris Olympics has also boosted viewership. According to WBD, streaming audiences for Paris 2024 had already surpassed Tokyo 2020 by the end of the second day. This appetite for comprehensive coverage has led to a significant uptake in paid subscriptions for Discovery+ and Max during the early days of the Paris Games.

By day five of the Paris 2024 Olympics, the European audience reached over 100 million, almost one-third higher than the comparable period during Tokyo 2020, across both TV and streaming platforms. Georgiou noted that their Olympic TV coverage is drawing double the audience levels of Tokyo, with minutes viewed via the Discovery+ app quadrupling the numbers recorded during the Tokyo Games.

Discovery+ has traditionally faced challenges with high churn rates, as customers tend to cancel subscriptions after watching specific must-see events. This lack of extensive content compared to services like Netflix makes retention difficult. “The service had a strong first quarter and is now the fastest growing paid video-on-demand service in terms of subscriber growth,” said Andrew Skerratt, global insights director at Kantar. “However, the higher churn rates will continue to be a challenge, especially for households drawn by specific content.”

Despite this, Georgiou believes the UK’s performance in gaining new subscribers and their engagement levels has been exceptional, indicating better long-term retention prospects. He added that the full Max streaming service, set to launch in the UK in 2026 with a broader range of TV and film content, could help reduce churn rates further.

“That’s the one metric we are most focused on as a business,” he stated. “Sport is excellent for attracting new subscribers, but maintaining them is the key.”

Source: The Guardian