New data from the US shows that while people still flock to streaming services when exciting new content is launched, keeping them signed up isn’t quite so easy, with half of US viewers who came onboard for hit musical Hamilton or Wonder Woman 1984 unsubscribing within six months.

Indeed, 31 per cent of users who signed up for HBO Max in the days after Wonder Woman 1984 was available unsubscribed after a month.

The data from subscriber measurement company Antenna shows how all the players in the market need to not only have large libraries of old and popular shows and movies, they need to be consistently releasing popular – often expensive – programming to keep subscribers engaged.

One analyst says they also need a couple of “big, nice theatrical movies every quarter to make it feel like it’s really valuable.”

Disney + had more subscribers come on board when Hamilton launched for them than any day since early 2020 when they were just kicking off.

Wonder Woman 1984 saw a similar surge, as did the Tom Hanks WWII film Greyhound for Apple TV. But viewers didn’t stick around.

While all streaming services in the US see users drop off each month, they generally sign up more users than they lose. But users who sign up to binge on a significant new release tend to leave faster than average customers, once they’re done with that show.

Last year, US homes subscribed to an average of 3.6 streaming services, though numbers for their biggest subscriber Netflix have plateaued, and their operating profit shrank from 14.5 per cent to 8.2 per cent.

Netflix also saw a stock drop of 22 per cent after forecasting a lower number of subscriber additions than it added a year earlier, despite a significant run of hits.

To maintain momentum streaming services spent around twice as much on content, creating new shows and landing the rights to classic movies and shows last year than they had in 2017.

Netflix planned to spend US17 billion on content last year. They gained a high influx of subscribers in March 2020 as the pandemic took hold and they had hits like Tiger King on hand.

Of course shows aren’t always huge successes on immediate release, with breakout hits like Squid Game and Ted Lasso benefitting from word of mouth, with their episodic nature likely to retain subscribers longer.