discovery+ leads "Most Streaming Sign-ups" in January: 19% of all U.S. SVOD new subscribers

discovery+ tops the SVOD “Most Streaming Sign-ups” list for U.S. in its launch month.

discovery+ accounted for a 19% share of US SVOD signups in January according to new data released by ANTENNA, a subscription insights provider.

That put discovery+ ahead of HBO Max (14%), Disney+ (13%) and Hulu and CBS All Access (each with 11%).
discovery+ launched on January 4th in the U.S.
Parent Discovery Inc recently estimated its streamer would have 12 million paying subscribers by February 28, including 7 million paying in the U.S.

Source: Antenna
(d+ is the purpley color at top right)

How?

ANTENNA said that the majority of discovery+ signups came through third-party distributors like Apple, Amazon and Roku.
The data excludes signups via d+’s promotional deal with Verizon.

Ad-free Tier

Over half of discovery+ signups were for the ad-free tier which costs $6.99 per month.
By comparison back in July 2020, ANTENNA said that less than a quarter of Peacock signups were for its ad-free tier.
In 2019, Hulu said the majority of its subscribers chose its ad-supported tier.

Content

discovery+ launched with 55k TV episodes from its catalog along with a relatively thin stream of Originals.
According to VideoNuze, that’s more hours than are available on Netflix, Disney+, Peacock and HBO Max.
discovery+ announced plans to add 1,000 hours of originals this year.
d+ positions itself as the definitive SVOD for “real-life entertainment” versus the classic factual content that built the brand.

Dan Salerno’s d+ Report Card