HBO knows this game well. Limiting churn is the whole reason HBO/Showtime/etc programmed their release dates the way they did. Oh, Netflix deals with churn too. Very old problem. https://twitter.com/latimes/status/1351591773894660096

What arguably makes churn worse is the “release at once” phenomenon, pioneered by Netflix (even though many shows are still written/produced so they don’t have to be binge-watched), which lets someone suck in a whole series in a weekend and then cancel.

Netflix has attempted to conquer churn just by releasing an endless supply of content, apropos of quality, in the hopes that you’d stick around until the flagship series returned the next year.

Ironically, a pre-AT&T HBO, managed churn via HBO Go/Now, which in essence gave up home video revenue to offset churn/compete with other OTT content. The pandemic will be a problem because it created bottlenecks in the amount of new content that will be available.

But the best way to avoid churn is simply to have better programming. That’s what HBO nailed in the late 90s/aughts. But churn was built into the cable model, whereas it hasn’t been in pure OTT subs.